Twinkle Twinkle Little Bellatrix
by pstibbons
Summary: Bellatrix Black does not want to become a Lestrange or a minion to some Dark Wotsit. Hell no! She has a *Plan*. And Severus Snape is going along with it coz she'll kill him if he doesn't. AU, SSLE, Marauder bashing, and Discworld's Susan Sto Helit.
1. Brother Mine

_A/N: Fans of the Marauders should not read this. Those who believe James and Lily were fated for each other should not read this. Snape haters should not read this. Those who think Dark Magic is too serious to laugh at should not read this. Those who think that prejudice is black and white should not read this. Those who think innocents do not get killed in war should not read this. And while we're at it, decent human beings shouldn't read this either._

As canon portrays her, Bellatrix is a bigoted mad psychopath. But what she wasn't always? What if she was able to escape the madness? 

* * *

Severus Snape was naked.

It wasn't a particularly pleasant sight. His mother would have shrieked, if she'd been the shrieking type. And the living type.

His body was covered with scars and bruises. The latest additions were a small one on his right cheek, a large one on his left chest, and a horrible blackening contusion on his right shoulder. Courtesy of Pettigrew, Potter, and Black, respectively.

He was rather embarassed about the one on his cheek. He didn't deserve to be hit by a cowardly dalopheron like Pettigrew. Even if he was being held by Black and Potter at the time.

He'd applied a thick healing potion - one he'd learnt to brew when he was eight, though he'd improved it since - on his cheek and chest. The shoulder, now, that was tricky.

He found a dirty sponge in the back of his cupboard, Scourgified it, loaded it with potion, levitated it in the air in a vertical circular motion, and moved so that it applied itself to his shoulder.

At least he'd managed to crack one of Black's ribs at the end of it. He supposed McGonagall would be giving him detention for that soon enough, once the mutt had finished whinging to Pomfrey about it. For that was the way things worked at Hogwarts - Gryffindors attack Snape, Snape gets punished. That _incident_ with Lupin's beastly self last month was only an extreme example of the tradition. Sirius Black tries to kill Snape, Snape ends up with a life debt to Potter.

He'd kept track, once, of how many times his own ribs had been fractured. That was a couple of years ago.

He sighed.

It was a tough life being a half-blood in Slytherin. No-one in the House felt it worth allying with you because you were a halfie. No-one outside the House felt it was worth allying with you because you were a snake.

He'd had a friend, once. Up until six months ago.

She was called Lily.

He called her, once, what everyone else in his house called her. She wasn't his friend any more. He'd apologized. She told him to piss off. She told him he had bad friends.

He'd blinked at that.

Where was he supposed to get good friends from?

They didn't just come knocking on his door.

...

There was a knock on his door.

He blinked.

He flicked his wand to get his shirt, trousers, and robes on, and then opened the door.

The stern visage of Bellatrix Black met his stern gaze. His gaze quailed.

So much for the Good Friends bit. Bella had no friends. Then again, neither did he. But she had allies, minions. He wondered if he would ever get a minion.

"Black. Would you like to come in?"

He didn't expect her to say yes. His room in the Slytherin dorms - everyone above third year got their own room - was that of a poverty-stricken student. Plain. Clean. No teddy bears in sight. Books everywhere. Standard Hogwarts furniture instead of the luxurious fittings brought in by established Pureblood scions.

Scions like Bellatrix Black.

Her entry into the room - and especially her obvious avoidance of turning her nose up at it - meant that she was here to request assistance.

He offered her a chair. The chair.

She actually sat down on it. Without flinching or casting a cleaning charm first.

Must be serious assistance.

"I find myself in need of a Potions expert."

That made sense, he supposed. He was the best Potioneer in the school, no matter what Slughorn might say of his Gryffindor friend. Ex-friend.

Now he just had to hear what she wanted.

"In return, I won't Hex your balls off."

He considered this. He supposed it was a fair trade. She'd Hexed other boys' balls off before - it was a temporary loss, but a damn painful one. He liked his balls. He was quite attached to them, really.

"Have you a sample?" he asked the raven-haired witch, who handed it over. He looked carefully at the vial. It had the Black Family crest on it. It was bright pink and had small bubbles. Its meniscus was tinged with green. He frowned. He opened it, and sniffed it. Lemon, snotgrass, sulphur - he closed it quickly and proceeded to frown again.

"Did you ingest this?" he asked Bella, rudely.

"I am not certain," she replied. She seemed apprehensive, which was most unusual for her.

"Come with me," he said, stepping towards the door and holding it out for her. "If you are free now," he added, suddenly remembering that (a) she was a lady, (b) she was a year his senior, (c) she was a world above him in social status, and (d) his testicles were at stake.

"I am." She stepped out of the room, and followed him. He had a long and steady gait. Fortunately, so did she.

There were several wide-eyed stares at them as the pair marched side by side through the Slytherin Common Room. He realized that this would probably give him a week or two of protection from the rest of his house, before they worked out that he wasn't actually under her social aegis.

They arrived at the Potions Labs soon enough. It was in the dungeons, not far from their Slytherin dormitories. The better senior students, including Severus, had access to a student lab with Ministry-approved ingredients.

A couple of Ravenclaws were the only ones present. They took one look at Severus' companion and decided to put their brews under stasis and take a long break.

Bella smirked.

Severus didn't seem to notice, but headed for his favourite table instead.

She sat on a desk while he threw a few ingredients into a cauldron. In a couple of minutes, it was smoking away. Really smoking. Worryingly smoking.

Severus wasn't worried, so she calmed down. Once she'd placed a shield charm on herself.

He looked at her suddenly.

"You might want to put a shield on yourself, Black. If you are lucky, the next step will make this explode."

She blinked. _If she was lucky?_

She added a couple more shield charms. And got off the desk to move further away. Really far away.

He nodded at her when she was at the other end of the room.

He carefully put a couple of drops of her potion into the cauldron and then hastily cast at least three wards on the cauldron. He didn't move away.

She hadn't known it was possible to cast wards that fast.

Impressive.

Perhaps she would keep him around longer.

Wait a minute.

Correction - they had waited a minute. And it hadn't exploded.

Snape looked uneasily at the cauldron. He looked over the warded cauldron, stepped back, removed the wards, and looked into it again.

"Fuck."

She'd never heard him swear. Not like that. His cussing was more refined, more Druid than Dockyard. Which was odd really, given his background. She'd always figured it was overcompensation.

"What is it?" she asked uneasily.

He looked at her, and then cast some silencing wards around them. She recognized a couple, and wondered if he'd tell her the others if she asked nicely. As she had no clue how to ask nicely, she gave up on that avenue of thought.

"It's a Obsequium potion. If you ingest enough of it, you'll be susceptible to the suggestions of someone else. That someone else's blood is brewed into the potion. Every time you try to fight against it, there will be nerve damage. You'd face a choice of enslavement or madness."

Bellatrix didn't scare easily.

She was terrified.

Her world was falling apart.

She'd only found the sample by accident, in a freak circumstance involving an overheard conversation, a drunk mother, a senile House Elf, and judicial use of a Confundo.

She was its target.

Her parents wanted her married off to that uncouth brute Lestrange. She'd refused, earlier, multiple times.

Evidently, after Andromeda had eloped with the Mudblood, they were taking no chances with their next daughter.

She didn't know how long she was there, lost in thought, staring into space, when she heard Snape's voice.

"Black."

She blinked, then found herself with her wand in his face. She didn't know how it had got there. Damn reflexes.

He didn't look particularly perturbed.

"I could brew you an antidote. But you may wish to invest in some research before ingesting potions from someone you have no reason to trust."

She nodded, still pale.

"Would you like me to accompany you back to the dorms?"

She turned to him and gave him a blank look.

He seemed to realize, for the first time, that things were Really Serious. And that Bellatrix walking around with a half-dazed expression would do serious damage to her reputation. And to his, since he was the one last seen in public with her.

He nodded at her, left a vial of Pepper-up and Calming Potion next to her, and returned to his brewing table. He had a permanent list in his head of Potion variants that _had_ to be tried.

An hour later, he looked up and was immediately struck by a most ominous wave of apprehension.

She had recovered. She was eyeing him, in the way a cat eyes a mouse.

Clearly, Bellatrix Black had a _Plan_. And he was in it.

This could be really bad for his medical insurance premiums. (Not that he had any.)

"Snape," said the witch.

He kept stirring.

"Isn't the world a wonderful place, Snape? So large, so full of _life_, so much lovely Dark Magic!"

He added some fairy wings to the brew.

"We Brits don't get out much, do we, Snape? Our view of magic is so limited, so _constrained_ by our lack of experience. Did you know that in Asante magic, all you have to do is kill two albino babies to make a potion that gives you an instant Animagus form?"

He was chopping swiffel root. He nearly chopped off his finger.

"Have you ever wanted a little brother, Snape?"

He shuddered. He'd wondered about that actually. Given the number of times his father _assaulted_ his mother in _that way_, it was a miracle he didn't have one. No, he was very grateful he didn't have siblings. It was hard enough looking out for himself.

"I've always wanted a little brother, Severus. Little sisters are _boring_. They always want to play with their dollies and they kick you in the shin when you chop their dollies' heads off."

He felt a moment of sympathy for Narcissa Black, but it soon wore off. Playing with headless dollies was probably character building or something.

More importantly, her use of his first name spelled Trouble.

"You're going to be my little brother, Sevvy. And we're going to explore the world."

The potion exploded. 


	2. The Death of Severus Snape

Since the birth of time, billions of people have died. Leaving behind billions of last words. Some quite memorable, like "They couldn't hit an elephant at this dist-" (1), "Acta est fabula, plaudite!" (2) and "Whadya mean, those were toadstools?" (3)

Severus Snape's choked utterance of "Lily!" was quite memorable to the five people who heard it.

Three of them had been landing kicks on him in the abandoned classroom.

The fourth, standing further off and pleading for them to stop, heard it because he was a werewolf.

The fifth, who was disillusioned in the corner, rolled her eyes. Of all the little brothers she could have had, she had to get the one hung up on a Mudblood. Well, you couldn't choose your relatives. (She conveniently ignored the fact that she had, since she was allergic to inconvenience.) Well, everyone was due their little eccentricities, eh? Even little brothers with an unnatural fondness for Mudbloods.

She wondered why her little brother was taking so long to die. She was almost tempted to call out "Get on with it!" but that would be Gryffindor and therefore ill-mannered.

"Prongs! Padfoot! Stop it! He's dead!"

Bellatrix wondered what those nicknames meant. She looked at her nails and wondered if she should start painting them. She waggled them in front of her face. Nope, they were fine as they were. Besides, they might affect the offensive charms she had on her right hand fingers and the defensive charms she had on her left hand fingers. Offence and Defence. So much easier to remember than Right and Left. Offence was always Right, exceptions excepted.

James Potter was in a state of high dudgeon and medium-rare panic. Remus couldn't find a pulse on Snivellus! What had happened?

Sirius Black looked mildly worried. Maybe the greasy git really was a vampire. Vampires didn't have pulses, did they? It would explain his general battitude.

Peter Pettigrew was seriously pissed. How come Remus hadn't yelled at him to Stop It? He was tired of being treated as irrelevant.

"We've killed him!" yelled Remus. "By Toutatis, we've fucking killed him!" (4)

Sirius' jaw dropped. He was absolutely shocked at this turn of events. Did Moony - _Moony!_ just curse? He never thought he'd see the day.

James wondered at Remus use of the first person plural. Remus hadn't laid a single punch or Hex and he thought it was his fault? Oh well. The ramifications of their actions were rapidly settling in on him. They had killed a man. True, it was only Snivellus, but they were _murderers_ now.

Lily would never speak to him again.

Clearly, a cover-up was in order.

Unfortunately for him, that was the Headmaster entered the room.

* * *

It was said that the Marauders could get away with murder. But it was one of those sayings, like 'If you don't eat your peas, the world will explode' or 'If you have unprotected sex with a duck, you will lay eggs'. Not something that was actually - true.

Except, mused Lily Evans, that it had become true.

The official story was that Severus and the Marauders had met each other in the corridors, and exchanged words. Unsurprisingly, Severus' words had been the far more cutting ones - he had apparently accused their mothers of having threesomes with camel riders and camels for galleons, their fathers of Hexing away all neighborhood storks after their births, and Gryffindors of being narrow-minded judgemental cowards. In response, the Marauders had Hexed him, forcing the Slytherin to duck into an abandoned classroom for cover.

And then, the coverup. By Dumbledore of all people. He announced it first to the prefects (Lupin excepted) at a special and somber meeting.

The Headmaster claimed that this classroom had an Aggression Ward on it. Anyone who entered it would have any aggressive tendencies enhanced past the point of control. In other words, the Marauders weren't the perpetrators in the murder of Severus - but fellow victims.

She had never heard such a pot of heronistic crock in her life.

She was _Furious_.

And when he went on to explain that the Marauders would only be getting punished with a minor points loss and a month of detentions, she was not the only prefect who was shocked.

"Headmaster!" she cried, "this is madness! They should be expelled!"

There were nods of assent, particularly among the Slytherin prefects. But Dumbledore seemed unperturbed.

"I have identified the Class Gamma Aggression Wards in the room where Mr Snape died. The wards are still present, and any of you may analyze them. Whoever placed them there was trying to frame the quartet of students in question."

Boudicca Smythe, the Ravenclaw Headgirl, pointed out the obvious. "Headmaster, such a ward does not create aggression. It amplifies it. The so-called Marauders entered the room with intent to harm him. An Aggression Ward is not an Imperius. They would have hurt him very badly without a ward. They should be suspended, preferably expelled."

"For one offence, Miss Smythe?"

There was an uproar. The Headmaster's blinkers on the Marauders' antics, which often crossed the boundaries from Pranking to Bullying (and not just on Snape), were not universally worn.

Dumbledore had the audacity to look surprised.

The uproar continued. Lily was on the verge of ripping her badge off and throwing it at the senile old man.

Somebody coughed.

The prefects recognized the cough, and the uproar died.

Smythe might have been Headgirl, but Bellatrix Black was the most influential student in the room. (Much to Dumbledore's chagrin.) Lily didn't think much of her - she was an out-and-out blood purist whose anti-Mudblood vocabulary had caused Lily - and several younger Muggleborn students - much emotional grief.

"Requesting permission to speak, Lord Dumbledore."

It was moments like this that made Lily feel like a commoner in Buckingham Palace.

"Granted, Miss Black."

"Thank you for the honour, Lord Dumbledore. I wish to point out that it would set a ridiculous precedent to suspend or expel two members of prominent Pureblood families for a tragic prank on a half-blood that nobody particularly cares about. The Marauders targeted Mr Snape for years with no punishment, as was their right as Purebloods. Now that they've finished the job - admittedly with the help of an as-yet-unknown ward-caster - they will calm down. They are hardly likely to redirect their attentions to anyone of consequence, after all."

You could have heard a pin drop in the room, and it had thick carpeting.

* * *

Two days later, Lily was still stunned at the final outcome. She didn't get the whole Blood Purist thing, she really didn't. When she got back to the Real World, she was going to hunt down some of her former Muggle classmates. Three blacks, two Pakis. Their social circles - and yes, nine year olds did have social circles - hadn't overlapped, and now she wondered if she'd been guilty of passive racism. She wanted to talk to them about it, ask them how often they felt like outsiders, ask them how they dealt with it.

She was standing on the balcony of her dorm. It faced the lake, and she imagined that she could see the giant squid playing solitaire. She imagined running away, leaving this hell hole behind, and going to Beauxbatons. She imagined shaving the Marauder's heads with a Hex. She imagined apologizing _to_ Severus for abandoning him. So what if he was friends with a bunch of allegedly Dark wizards who hated what she represented? She imagined going back in time, accepting Sev's apology, and being friends with him again. They'd sworn be Friends Forever when they were ten, hadn't they?

She currently felt that Pondus Scummius was higher up on the evolutionary ladder than Lilius Evansus.

She would allow Sev to call her all manner of names if she could just one more minute with him so she could say sorry. He could call her a Mudblood, coward, guttersnipe, blemnite, louse, goatfucker, slimebag, troglodyte, porridge eater, ectoplasm, hypocrite (more a fact than an insult, really), coelecanth, Lily-livered landlubber, ignoramus, potions brewer (as opposed to potions inventor), tramp, harlot, Labour voter, Tory voter (5), kleptomaniac, mountebank, jackanape, flobberworm, hippo, hippogriff, hippodrome, haddock (6). But not something _really_ insulting like Marauder or Potter. She had standards.

She sighed, and reflected on recent events.

Lupin had been stripped of his prefectship, to no-one's surprise. He looked the guiltiest of the lot. Lily was now the only sixth year Gryffindor prefect, and still considering throwing in her badge.

Black had been strutting around, and had even been heard remarking how much cleaner the school now was. Thing was, he really believed it. It was then that Lily had realized that if Potter hadn't had such a fixation on her, _she_ would have likely been a target of Black's venom.

Potter had had the sense to realize that this was not the best time to ask her out on a date. He even seemed guilty, but that wasn't surprising. She knew he had his good points, such as not being a committed psychopath like his best friend. Still, she was looking forward to the moment that he got over his temporary sanity and asked her out on a date. She already had her Hexes planned, and she fully intended to cast them.

She didn't think about Pettigrew, seeing as she wasn't his mother.

The reaction of the school to the Marauders getting away with murder had been vocal. The prefects had, against the orders of the Headmaster, leaked the details of the meeting to the school.

The four Marauders had lost a hundred points each (leaving Hufflepuff firmly in the lead for the Cup) and had detentions till the end of the year. This was a lot heavier than what the Headmaster had initially announced to the prefects. Apparently the Headmaster didn't like being in Bellatrix Black's good books.

Lily was still confused by Bella's statement. She sounded like she believed what she said, that it was acceptable for Purebloods to bully half-bloods. But she surely knew that making such a provocative statement in front of Dumbledore would force him to punish the Marauders more. Maybe she'd found a way to have her own cake and eat it - insult the halfie _and_ punish the Gryffies.

But they were still in school, the cocky cockhead cockroaches. Once seventh year started, they'd be all la-di-dah and Sev would still be la-di-dead.

* * *

A week after he was buried, the body of Severus Snape appeared in a Muggle apartment in Liverpool. He'd been buried with three Portkeys on him, after all.

"There you are!" exclaimed Bellatrix happily. She looked at her brother-whether-he-wanted-it-or-not-and-he-probably-didnt. He looked pale and dead, which was rather the point.

She frowned. She'd always felt that he didn't spend enough time on his appearance. Being dead was no excuse. Especially when he wasn't really dead.

A minute later, the corpse was wearing lipstick. On his lips, eyelids, nose, and cheeks.

Bellatrix considered her work. She really needed a camera. From what she had seen in other families, brothers considered blackmail endearing. She wanted to be endearing to her proboscisian new sibling. She wanted to be Endearingness Personified. She shrugged. She could always retrieve a photograph from a Pensieve later.

Now, where was that antidote Sev had brewed earlier?

* * *

_A/N: Yeah, yeah, Sevvikins and Bella faked his death. He cast the Aggression wards, too. Part One (of Eighty Six And Two-Thirds) of Bella's Plan is done!_

_**References:**_

_(1) "They couldn't hit an elephant at this dist-" is the modified (but immensely more popular) version of the last words of General John Sedgwick in the American Civil War. (He served on either Side A or Side B, it's not important.) His soldiers were performing appropriate acts of self-preservation under major enemy fire, so he yelled at them__, "I'm ashamed of you, dodging that way. They couldn't hit an elephant at this distance."__ Moments later, it was discovered that he wasn't, in fact, a pachyderm. He was shot, through his left eye, fell forward, and did the whole dying thing._

_(2) "Acta est fabula, plaudite!" - "The play is over, applaud!" These are sometimes said to be the last words of Augustus Caesar, but he really said "Did you like the performance?" Presumably he felt the need for a job evaluation while on his death bed. Or that a good performer wouldn't feel the need to demand applause. _

_(3) I made this up. But somebody, somewhere, sometime, probably said it, so it counts._

_(4) Toutatis is a Celtic god worshipped ages ago by shopkeepers and frogs i.e. Britons and Gauls. (Ok, ok, Gaul is the old name of France.) In the Asterix books, the gratuitously violent protagonists are forever saying "By Toutatis!" in the same manner in which we might say "Jesus Christ!" or "Holy Pope Droppings!"_

_(5) For the purpose of this chapter, Lily votes Lib Dem because she is a kind and sensitive soul who will never get anywhere in life. (Fine, fine, I have too many LD friends - erase the last seven words.)_

_(6) Captain Haddock of the Tintin series is a master of the art of using sequences of unrelated and irrelevant words to cuss. I used some of them. _


	3. Recruiting the Mudblood

_A/N: Reader response (much appreciated! Merci! Dankie! Ndatenda! Etc!) to this story is the only thing keeping this fic going. That and the fact that I can't resist making professors piddle in public corridors ... _

_I should also say in advance that no kittens were beheaded and brutally mutilated during the writing of this chapter. Just so you know. If you're of a nervous indisposition and all._

_Numbered references are explained at the end of the chapter. I've also added explanations to the previous chapter._

* * *

Minerva McGonagall piddled in the corner.

The biggest advertisement for having an Animagus form was the freedom it offered. Though she still had to achieve her new Life Purpose of piddling in Albus' slippers.

She hadn't been sleeping much the last two weeks. Guilt bred insomnia.

It had been around their fourth year that the Marauders' pranks began going beyond mere prankery. While the victim was usually Snape, first or second year Slytherins were sometimes caught in the crossfire or as part of House-wide pranks that they didn't know how to counter. Itching powder in bog rolls sounded quite funny, unless it was _your_ arse on fire, and Merlin help you if you were allergic to the stuff. Two second years had to be sent to St Mungo's before the Slytherin prefects were able to counter it. She'd wanted to suspend the quartet for two weeks, but Albus laughed it off and turned it into a week of detentions.

Just because Albus Porkpie Wuggles Jesus (1) Dumbledore was a prankster in his youth didn't mean everything was a prank. She liked a good prank herself, but there was such a thing as consequences. Albus must surely have forgotten the number of times his pimply bum had been exposed and paddled in his Headmaster's office when he pulled off a prank. (Incidentally, it was forty two - she'd checked the records _and_ asked the Fat Friar.)

All the Marauders had learnt from their Headmaster was that pranks aimed at Slytherins - especially those with greasy hair and big conks - could be as harmful as they wanted.

Of course, the final prank wasn't completely their fault. Someone had cast an Aggression Ward, and it had raised their intentions from 'Hex Outnumbered Greasy Gits' to 'Kill The Snape! Cut His Throat! Spill His Blood!' (2). She had considered the possibility that it was Snape himself who cast it in an effort to commit 'suicide by bullies', but that only made her feel worse - did a child truly see Hogwarts as such a terrible place that he'd rather commit suicide than continue learning in it? Did Snape feel that this was the only way he could bring some attention to his situation? And she was the head of the Marauders' House.

Which was why she'd been sleeping in her cat form within sight of the Gryffindor tower for the past two weeks. Even if they went under that bloody cloak of theirs, she'd smell them. They were staying locked up in the tower where they belonged. The rest of the school would be protected from them.

* * *

Lily Niamh Evans was sitting under a tree, reading a book in the traditional way. This tradition was that followed by generations of Mudblood bookworms before and after her - disguising it as 'Hogwarts: A History'.

The previous weekend - when she was spending a day with her parents after Sev's funeral - she had slipped away to Knockturn Alley. Her destination was _Whore's Words_, the well known bookstore and 'Repository of Genuinely Ministry-Disapproved Items'. She'd been wondering if Dark Magic was really as Dark as it was made out to be. After all, she was a Mudblood and her only source of information were Muggle prejudices and pontifications by Gryffindors like Sirius Black and Albus Dumbledore. She still believed it was a Bad Thing, but she was allowing for the possibility that the situation was greyer than she'd imagined.

All of which led to her current reading material 'Sur la Magie Sombre' ('On Dark Magic'). It was written by a Moor witch called Sama in the early 1800s. Sama was in hiding while she wrote it, and was eventually caught burnt to death by the Spanish Inquisition. She'd been expecting to die (3), and the first ten pages of the book were poignant messages for her twin daughters. She skipped those bits after the first page, since crying while reading Hogwarts: A History was suspicious behaviour.

It was surprising, to say the least. She'd never realized that the best botanical gardens in Paris had used Dark spells to keep pests out. She'd have to check that...

* * *

Severus Snape liked Chicago. Bellatrix, using her not inconsiderable Trust Fund, had procured an alias for him before his staged death. Unfortunately, she had thought that Fido Dogsbody was a regular Muggle name, which made the alias somewhat less useful than he'd like.

Still, he supposed that if he ever learnt to drive, he'd never get a ticket since the copper - wait, they were called cops here - would be too busy laughing his head off to issue him one.

Fortunately, he was able to get a nice non-documentation-requiring job quite easily, brewing illegal potions to use in drugs for Muggles. It twinged on his conscience a bit, being involved with helping others on the road to hell, but he told himself it was their fault for being on the road in the first place. Besides, it was only for a few months. His conscience protested again, and he ceded his brain to experienced security troops that gunned it down.

He'd also managed to escape having to show his atrocious identification to his new landlord. All he wanted in exchange for Sev's room was a fistful of dollars. Snape noted that the man's fist looked a lot bigger and more menacing than his own.

Needing a name, Sev called himself Mark Thatcher, after an individual of whom he had heard nothing positive (4).

He communicated with Bella using a pair of Charmed notebooks. Ironically, he'd learnt the Charm from Lily. Merlin knew where she'd got it from.

Bella hadn't liked calling him Mark. She liked Fido. Severus patiently explained to her that Fido was a dog's name. She suggested Flipper ("His snout is as big as yours, Sevvikins"), followed by Dumbo, Skippy, and Thumper. He'd been rather relieved by the absence of Bambi on her list. He'd also been very surprised by the existence of the list in the first place - what did she know about Muggle children's stories?

Ah, the hidden depths of Bellatrix Black, pureblood princess... he had a nasty feeling that he was going to learn some of them. It was even possible that undernearth Bella's harsh stone-cold bigoted shell was a soft creamy center (composed of pureed kitten heads, no doubt).

* * *

Three weeks after Snape become an ex-Snape, Lily was brewing in the student Potions Lab. She was making a shampoo for the Marauders, one that would cure all their hair problems. (Their hair was a problem.)

The door opened, Bellatrix Black walked in, and Lily's wand was in the Slytherin's hand before Lily could say 'Aaargh!'

The Gryffindor prefect was still holding the knife she was using to cut asphorgusite stems, and she pointed this out to the older student.

Bella tossed her back her wand.

Lily grabbed it, surprised.

Bella took a white handkerchief and placed it on the table where Lily was brewing.

"Pax, Mudblood Filth," said Bella.

"Pax, Product Of A Thousand Years of Inbreeding," responded Lily in kind, after the requisite eye roll.

Bella seemed marginally impressed as she put down her wand. "Eight hundred, actually. If you think I'm bad, you should have seen my great great grandmother. She died of eating oysters."

Lily warily put down her knife and wand as well. "Allergies?" she inquired politely.

"She left the shells on. One caught in her throat, saving the remaining oysters from a gruesome end. Till my great grandfather ate them, I suppose. That's when the Black line began importing Purebloods from the continent."

With this scintillating piece of smalltalk out of the way, the two witches cast an uneasy eye on each other. The Mudblood wasn't sure she could trust the Pureblood because the Pureblood made it quite clear that the Mudblood was an inferior life form. The Pureblood wasn't sure if she could trust the Mudblood because inferior life forms might not be cognizant of proper Magical customs such as Pax.

Still, they hadn't Hexed each other yet.

"How long is this ceasefire going to last?" asked Lily.

"Ceasefire?" Bella had no idea what that meant. Must be a Muggle term. Why was the Mudblood talking about stopping fires now? There wasn't anything burning in the room, was there?

"Cessation of hostilities?" offered the Gryffindor. "The Pax?"

"An hour?" suggested Bella, relieved to see that inferiority did not imply ignorance.

"Yeah, alright. I hope you won't get withdrawal symptoms from not calling me a Mudblood for an hour."

"Calling you a Mudblood isn't hostile, it's a fact."

Lily slapped her head with her forehead. "Look, I find that term really insulting. I consider its use a hostile act."

Bella cocked her head, bemused. "You Gryffindors are crazy. You just admitted to saying that you were unnerved by the use of a single word. That is a weakness. A Slytherin would never admit to a weakness."

"Really?" said Lily after a moment. She couldn't understand how a system built on hiding weaknesses could survive. Surely it would collapse on itself? Weaknesses were meant to be exposed so they could be allowed for and protected against. Though it did explain a lot about Sev's behaviour.

"Fine," acquiesced Bella after watching Lily muse. Inferior humanoids were _so_ difficult to negotiate with. It was easy negotiating with other members of Slytherin. They knew they were below her in civilized society and/or Hexing ability. She told them the deal, they accepted the deal. Simple. Straightforward. Convenient. Witness her deal with Sevvikins. Now, Gryfifndor Mudbloods on the other hand had no sense of the obvious and required _persuading_.

"Say, can I keep brewing?" asked the Mudblood.

How unspeakably rude, thought Bella.

"I'm brewing a potion to sabotage Potter's and Black's shampoos so that all their hair falls out."

Bella decided this wasn't rude at all. "By all means, proceed," she said without hesitation. "I do hope it's permanent."

"Alas, no," replied Lily with a frown. "It's just for a week. Besides, irreversible effects wouldn't be - er - wouldn't be right. And," she added ruefully, "I don't have the coelecanth scales I'd need to make the permanent version."

"We should talk about that," proposed Bella with an evil grin. "Regrettably, it will have to be at a future date."

"I would welcome that," said the inferior creature with a grin. "So - what did you wish to discuss?"

Bella reminded herself that she wasn't dealing with someone who knew the Right And Proper manner of speaking. Her copy of 'The Pureblood's Illustrated Guide To Dealing With Mudbloods' said that she would have to reduce herself to more plebian speech to keep the Mudblood at ease and more likely to assist. Right. She could do that.

"I need your help," said Bella, with an internal wince.

Lily almost dropped her ladle, but rescued it in time.

"Er - what? Sorry, I'm a little surprised. How can I help you?"

"I find myself in need of a guide to the Muggle world. With all due Pax secrecy, you understand. Including accompanying me to various locations at my expense for a months in the upcoming summer. With the option to extend the - " Bella paused, trying to remember the correct term. "- field trip."

Lily's mouth had a lovely little miniature cottage in it with a sign that said 'For Sale. Immediate Occupancy. Flies Welcome.'

"If it makes you more comfortable, we won't be the only ones on this trip. I'll bring a friend along. I call him Fido."

* * *

__

**References:**

(1) According to certain interpretations of interpretations of interpretations of fact, Brian was the Important One and Jesus was the guy born next door who got all the credit/blame. For more on this, see the published works of Chapman, Idle, Gilliam, Jones, Cleese, Palin, Innes, and Cleveland.

(2) See William Golding's Lord of the Flies, a wholesome children's tale of boys killing boys in a confined environment. The bad little boys worshipped a Hog kebab and sang 'Kill The Beast! Cut His Throat! Spill His Blood!'. The truly terrifying part is imagining how much more scary the story would have been if they'd all been little girls instead. (PS: Has this been done already?)

(3) Contrary to the assertions of the individuals referred to in (1), some people did expect the Spanish Inquisition.

(4) Mark is the only son of Margaret Thatcher (and the reason why he remains an only son). I may have messed the years up a little, as I'm unsure of whether rumours of his notoriety had begun by 1976. But Mark-bashing is always fun. Poor Denny and Maggie...


	4. Consorting with the Enemy

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A/N: Thank you for your reviews. They bring sunshine to my life, which the chlorophyll in my scaly green skin converts to the requisite nutritional elements. 

* * *

_A week or two or three or four later..._

Filius Flitwick basked happily in the water. A gaggle of first year Gryffindors giggled as they threw him slices of bread, which he caught and devoured. He used his huge tentacles to splash the water, causing his mesmerized audience to giggle some more.

The Giant Squid didn't spend all his time under the lake. During lesson times, he taught Charms classes.

Filius was the most blatant and unsuspected Animagus in Hogwarts. He was registered - in Fiji (1), home of some distant ancestor of his that he had conveniently happened to remember while waiting in line at the Fijian Animagus Registration Office.

He had better eyesight than any other Giant Squid in existence, since he wasn't a Charms Master for nothing. Which was why he could see, in a small cove two unlikely girls talking to each other. His eyes - already a foot in diameter - widened.

* * *

Lily and Bella watched the Giant Squid playing with the littluns.

"I've always wondered," said the Mudblood, "how such a creature got here in the first place."

The Mudblood-hater looked at the Squid again, and considered this. She hadn't considered it before, and it was a good question.

"They're salt-water molluscs," said Lily, "and this is a freshwater pond. A large freshwater pond, admittedly, but it's not connected to the ocean or anything."

Bella bit her lip, which Lily had learnt meant she was thinking, before just saying, "Magic." With this explanation out of the way, Bella got down to what they were talking about earlier.

"So about this mechanical House Elf that your Muggles sent to Mars -"

Lily, wondering if everything unexplainable got explained away by magic, continued with her story. "It's a simulacrum. The American Muggles made it. They call it a robotic probe. They launched it last November, and it's supposed to get to Mars this June. It's going to see if there's any life there." (2)

"The Muggles can make simulacrums?" asked Bella, surprised. "Without magic? How?"

"I don't know the details, exactly," replied Lily, "I think I'd have to go to Muggle university for many years before I could understand. It's just what I read in the newspapers."

"Hmmm." Bella had read Muggle newspapers - Andy had sometimes showed them to her when their mother wasn't around. She found them very confusing. And there were loads of them, which was even more confusing. Even the comics - by far the best bits of the papers - were sometimes confusing. All in all, it was a very confusing glimpse into the lives of very confusing people. It was definitely a good thing they were an inferior species. Pity there were so many of them...

"Have you read _Sur la Magie Sombre_?" asked Lily suddenly, looking at her watch. They had only a couple of minutes of their hour left.

"Course I have. Every proper Pureblood kid reads it. I got a book about her life on my eighth birthday. Well, that was the kids version."

"There's a kids version?" asked Lily, aghast. Sama's life was pretty horrific - and showed Muggles at their worst. She could easily see how Pureblood kids reading about her would hate and fear Muggles.

"Of course there is. It comes with lots of explanatory footnotes. And it's less graphic. So instead of saying that Sama is gang raped by the Muggle priests who carve her nipples, it just says they beat her up a lot. It's also got pictures, truly exquisite ones, drawn by some Andorran Veela in Andorra la Vella. Cissa really liked them. And every page smelt different. I liked page 17. It smelt of sandalwood."

Lily blinked. She didn't know what to say, and displayed considerable wisdom in saying nothing.

Bella's watch puffed up and let out a small plume of orange smoke. "Morgana! Tempus Fugit! (3) I better be off." She paused. "Mudblood filth," she added fo form's sake and because she meant it.

Lily barely noticed the insult - she was inured to it by now. "Meet you tomorrow at the room on fifth, same time?"

Bella nodded, gave the Mudblood an OK gesture before vanishing. Lily remained oblivious to the fact that this was a Pureblood gesture meaning 'Go piddle on yourself'.

* * *

"You've been seen consorting with Mudbloods," hissed Clelli Rosier, one of the most rabid pro-Voldemort seventh years in the school. He was, fortunately, more on the Thug side than the Bright side.

Bella never felt Thugginess implied Moroniness. She could speak Thug quite well herself. She knew her cousin Sirius could speak Thug, no matter how much he might deny it. Andromeda - now, Andy was interesting. She spoke Seriously Evolved Thug fluently, which was why she was able to escape with her Mudblood to parts as yet unknown. Their parents had been unsuccessful in tracking her, and Morgana knew they had tried.

Bella could really use her older sister's advice now.

Enough reminiscing. There was a wannabe thug to discipline.

"Course I have," stated Bella imperiously. "I need _virgin blood, freely given_ for a Potions ingredient. I'm in negotiations with the Evans whore."

"Evans is a whore?" asked Clelli, scratching his head. "How's she a virgin then? Does she do only oral?"

Bella slapped her forehead with her hand. "No. She's a fucking virgin." She groaned at the even more confused look on the Pureblood wizard's face. "She's a virgin. I was using the word _whore_ as an insult."

"Oh," he said. "OH!" he said, finally understanding. "Damn. That's a pity. I was going to ask what her price was. She's a fine bird. Er, for a Mudblood."

"Wanker. You tell me I'm consorting with Mudbloods when you want to shag her? How is shagging not consorting?"

The common room was watching with interest. Initially Bella and Clelli had been the only seventh years there, but the Herbology posse had just entered. (Bella despised vegetation of all kinds, especially when it made her way to her plate.) Clelli's cousin (third, once removed, twice disowned, thrice reowned) Evan Rosier was among them. Unfortunately, Evan was in possession of a brain not previously possessed by a cabbage.

"Greetings, Black. And cousin mine." Evan's voice was mellifluous, and a couple of third years in the corner swooned. Bella made a mental note to transfigure their cutlery to worms at the next meal. "I wish to offer my support for Clelli's ineptly expressed remarks."

Clelli looked most reassured and pleased by this, presumably because he thought 'inept' meant 'ept'.

"Mere shagging cannot be considered consorting," continued Rosier. "Consorting impliest the conveying of respect. The act of intercourse can be performed without an iota of respect involved, particularly if payment is involved. Animals shag. People consort. It's quite simple really."

Bella fumed. Rosier had a point - one that she was well aware of. But just because she had been caught off-guard by the sudden change of opponent did not mean she had lost face. Yet. As her father had told her when she was an eight year old sitting on his knee, it wasn't what how much you knew about a debate that mattered, but how much you knew about the debater.

"Granted, you make an excellent point, Rosier," she said. Her body language conveyed supreme boredom with the conversation, her agreement akin to handing her favourite dog a bone since she didn't need to chew on it. "When someone shags you, that doesn't mean they respect you. In fact, I overheard Annika Culter complaining to her friends last week that you didn't last very long, which sounds terribly far from respectful behaviour to me."

"EVAN!" shrieked an anonymous bint who was presumably Rosier's current squeeze.

Bella smirked as the common room rapidly forgot his earlier victory.

* * *

The Gryffindor common room was a pleasant place. Every evening at five pm, tea and cookies magically appeared and were duly devoured. Every evening at six pm (or thereabouts - Gryffindors and Punctuality were not bosom buddies) there would be an argument and everyone would sit around and watch. Today's Argument featured a Mudblood and a Pureblood. (Not that Gryffindors thought in such archaic and prejudiced terms, of course.)

"You've been seen consorting with the enemy," hissed Sirius Black.

"I agree," replied Lily. "In fact, I'm doing it right now. So if you could just transfer your tepid tush to the other end of the room, I'd been most obliged. You're getting in the way of my light."

"Light!" spat Sirius, pushing her book aside. "What do you know of light? You're talking to Bellatrix! She's the Darkest bitch in my family!"

Over in the corner, James Potter watched. He was rapidly becoming resigned to the fact that he had lost Lily for now, possibly for good. His attempts to court her after Snivellus' death had fallen flat - she didn't even get irritated by him any more. She didn't even _see_ him. He was irrelevant. He suspected it was a ruse - but that if she stopped spending energy ignoring him, she would spend it Hexing him to Hades. Her dorm mates even said that she'd been exchanging Owls with Beauxbatons about transferring to there.

"Magic - no matter what colour - doesn't murder people, Black. People do. People like you." Lily was still sitting down, though she was looking at him. "And put your face away. You smell like one of Hagrid's pets."

"I'm not a murderer!" yelled Sirius. "That bloody ward made me do it!"

"Oh? Really? Tell you what, you _Marauder_," spat Lily, "I will not speak to your cousin if you give me a memory of the entire event where you lot killed Severus."

In the audience, James stiffened. If Lily ever learnt what Snape's last words were, she really would be lost to him. And the sight of their killing her childhood friend would be unforgettable, Aggression Ward or not. He wished Remus was here - but he'd been holed up in the library ever since the incident.

"Deal!" said Sirius.

Lily grinned - after all, Sirius had never specified _which_ cousin and she could well survive without ever speaking to Barbie Black a.k.a. Narcissa again - and dashed to her dorm to grab a vial.

When she arrived back to the common room after a couple of minutes, it was to the sight of James and Sirius furiously arguing in hushed whispers in a corner of the lounge.

"What's up with them?" she asked a nearby fourth year.

"Potter doesn't seem to want Black to give you the memories," replied the boy. "Baker over there is taking bets on the outcome."

"But I've only been gone a couple of minutes!"

"It's Baker," he replied with a shrug. "He's a fast worker. And he'd offer odds on anything. You can get fifty to one odds on Professor Dumbledore becoming pregnant."

Lily thought fifty was rather small, but then remembered that male pregnancy was possible in the magical world - though even more painful than the female version. Men's backs were never meant to carry loads in the front (4), after all.

Lily realized she was digressing. And she'd missed the bit where Sirius and James had evidently reached some agreement.

"Ah, Evans," said Sirius nervously. "About that deal - "

Lily grinned. So he wanted to renege on it, did he? "Yes?" she replied sweetly.

"You never specified which cousin you would stop talking to."

So he'd worked that out too, thought Lily. "I assumed you meant Bellatrix," she replied, her voice still on the nauseating side of saccharine. Besides, she still hadn't said that she was going to stop talking to Bella.

"Er - yes - well - um - I might not be able to supply the memory," said Sirius nervously. "Potter here reminded me that I have this genetic condition, see, that causes me debilitating headaches if I retrieve any memories from it."

Lily gave Sirius her best Your-Dandruff-Is-Smarter-Than-You look. "Really. Let me guess. This _condition_ of yours, it wouldn't be called Keeping Incriminating Evidence Out Of The Public Eye, would it?"

Before Sirius could reply, she turned up her nose at him, gathered her books, and left him and Potter standing there.

The resulting gossip swirled... and in Hogwarts, the court of public opinion swung against the Marauders once again.

* * *

Thousands of miles away, in a dinky small-town Big City called Chicago (5,6) Severus Snape was toasting himself. He had found a Potions Mistress in Hyde Park - a neighbourhood on the South Side of the city with seven seminaries and a small college of diligent bibliophiles called The University of Chicago - to apprentice under. Her name was Susan Sto Helit (8) and she was of indeterminate age. He thought she might be some kind of vampire hybrid. But she definitely knew her stuff and appreciated the fact that he wasn't who he said he was and didn't ask intrusive questions about his past.

She had just pointed to a cauldron in her lab and told him to brew the notoriously difficult Silverstorm (9) variant of Polyjuice. He almost made it right. She asked him what he should have done. He told her what he thought. She told him he was wrong and that he should report back at seven in the morning to sign the contract for their Apprenticeship.

Life was good.

He wondered, idly, how long it would remain that way.

* * *

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(1) All Animagi in the magical world have to be registered. There is nothing to say _where_ they have to be registered. For instance, in an alternate universe twenty years later, a Mudblood student called Hermione registers her form in Israel and uses it to escape Azkaban, but that is another story (by the same author). In any case, since Britain is one of the few countries that have public Animagus registries, very few people register there.

(2) Lily's talking about NASA's Viking I mission, which would have received extensive media coverage at the time. She would have read Muggle newspapers over the holidays.

(3)Tempus Fugit - Latin saying meaning 'Time Flies' and not 'Time Fudges It', though the latter has its uses.

(4) This was worked out in the Magical world first. To see when the Muggle world found out, please see Whitcome, K. K., Shapiro, L. J. & Lieberman, D. E. _Fetal load and the evolution of lumbar lordosis in bipedal hominins_. Nature advance online publication, doi:10.1038/nature06342 (2007). An extract from the abstract: "...Here we show that human females have evolved a derived curvature and reinforcement of the lumbar vertebrae to compensate for this bipedal obstetric load..."

(5) Home to two baseball (7) teams, called the White Sox and The Other Lot.

(6) Hypnobarb has an excellent HGSS fic 'Looking For Magic' on this site where Hermione and Draco go to college in Chicago. It's over 750 000 words, and counting. She may need some prodding to keep counting, so please prod her.

(7) Cricket on steroids. (That should serve to insult both sets of fans.)

(8) A.k.a. Death's Granddaughter is nicked from the Discworld. She won't be doing more than cameos, though :( This fic is set centuries post-Hogfather - she is an Immortal like her scythe-wielding 'ancestor', after all.

(9) A tribute to the author of my favourite HGSS fic, When A Lioness Fights. 


	5. Lily Goes To Heaven

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A/N: I'm curious as to how many people plan to boycott the HBP film. Being a Hermione fan, I have little desire to see a visual representation of the book that destroyed her character completely.

As required by county by-laws, this chapter comes with warnings for Muggle baiting and terrible writing.

Your reviews - we're past the fifty mark in a week! - are greatly appreciated.

* * *

Extract from _Sur La Magie Sombre_ :

The precise nature of Dark and Light Magic is most perplexing. The commonest metaphor is that Light Magic is akin to the riding of a horse whereas Dark Magic is akin to the riding of a tiger. This comparison emphasises several aspects of the Dark - its superiority in sheer power, its aversion to being tamed, and the difficulty of getting off.

Indeed, the path of a Dark Witch or Wizard is depressingly predictable : Fascination, Investigation, Temptation, Education, Fight for Control, Control, Loss of Control, Destruction. The mage is fascinated by the power and beauty of the Dark, and investigates further. The temptation to learn more is strong, and eventually succumbed to. The mage finally controls the Dark, and revels in it - until control is lost, as is the humanity of the mage. And the Dark Mage is born, lacking a conscience, and wreaks havoc upon the world. Cue band of heroes to destroy the mage, alea jacta est.

And yet, predictable does not mean inevitable. Regardless of what the history books may say, the greatest witches and wizards of lore - Gandalf, Hecate, Merlin, Morgana, Nehanda - all were masters of both Dark and Light magic. They fought, they protected, they killed, they saved hundreds or thousands more than they killed.

What made them different? Strength of will? Strength of morals? Love? Hatred? Madness? Allergies? Only they know.

What you must know for now is that the Darkness of Dark Magic is not the same as the Darkness of Humanity. The Muggle priests who commit countless atrocities on my body and on others - they have no magic, but their souls are Dark. The Dark Witch Judith who nailed a general's head to the ground with a tent peg to save her people had not a Dark soul. Counterexamples such as these abound, my beloved daughters. (1)

* * *

The most well-informed person in Hogwarts was a Gryffindor fourth year named Swindell Baker (2), known affectionately to his friends as 'Swindle'. He even had ghosts spying for him, in exchange for good conversation, rotten meat, and wretchedly sour milk.

Currently he was adjusting his odds on the next Headgirl. Lily Evans was no longer the frontrunner, since it was unlikely that she was returning to Hogwarts (he offered three to one odds on her leaving), which left Ravenclaw's Catherine Mulroney and Hufflepuff's Josephine Lowring duking it out.

He'd have to work on Headboy odds next. Potter should logically be out of the running, but since it was well known that the Marauders had some kind of blackmail on the Headmaster (how else would they get away with so much?), he wasn't sure logic had much say in the matter. Still, he decided to reduce the odds on Maneim Mulciber and Jonny Agnew (3) just in case. He considered the two names. Agnew's position as official Quidditch commentator had made him quite popular among the students, so Baker made him the new favourite.

All. Right. Then.

Now he just had to work out the odds on who Evan Rosier would lay next, when Professor McGonagall would realize that the Lupinless Marauders were now prowling Hogwarts at night by flying out their dorm window, which body part Carmen Lavsegas would injure at her next Quidditch match, which body part Professor Kettleburn would lose next, the name of Mr Filch's next cat (crossed-out) quadruped (crossed-out) indeterminate-legged familiar, and what colour sandals the Headmaster would be wearing on the last day of school. And maybe by then, if he was lucky, Binns' soporific History lecture would finally have ended and he could get to lunch.

* * *

Lily was studying in her usual spot in the library.

It was a week till her last examinations at Hogwarts. She was going to Ireland for her final year. Everyone thought she was going to Beauxbatons, thanks to her public efforts at misdirection. She had received a place at both schools, but the College of Cork Coven was cheaper, and offered fewer linguistic difficulties. Of course, the Irish equivalent of NEWTs were much tougher than the British ones, so she would have a lot of summer reading to do.

She hoped her planned field trips with Bella wouldn't get in the way of her reading.

It might have been easier to hope for world peace.

She heard someone approach, and one of her hands moved under the table to grasp her wand. She looked up, and kept her face unexpressive. She had clearly been hanging around with Bella too long.

"Lupin."

The aforementioned person grimaced at her use of his surname. Lily and Remus had always been friends. If it wasn't for his lycanthropy and his Alpha's lust for her, he would have asked her out years ago. Now they were on opposite sides of an uncrossable line. He understood, really. If she had killed James or Sirius or Peter the way they'd killed Snape, he wouldn't be talking with her either.

"May I call you Lily?" he asked tentatively.

"Of course not. My friends call me that."

He quailed visibly. A large part of Lily wanted to reach out and comfort him, as old friends do. The rest of her was firmly in control.

"Errm. Right. Cripes." He paused. "Sorry," he mumbled finally.

Lily gave him a look. "You need to be more specific."

Remus gave her a look, a blank one. "Hunh?"

"Precisely what are you sorry about? Being a werewolf? Being a coward? Being a prefect unable to rein in his murderous friends? Being one of the tools that killed Severus?"

"You know!" he exclaimed in a loud hushed whisper.

"Know what?"

"About my, you know, my - er - _furry little problem_?"

"Oh, that. Sure I know. I worked it out in third year." She looked rueful. "Yeah, I should have worked it out earlier. I always was a bit dim."

Remus picked up his jaw from the floor. "You could have told me," he said, his brain still calibrating the possibilities of What Ifs. What If he had known that others knew and didn't care? What if he hadn't been so terrified at the thought of losing his only friends that he could have stood up to them more? What if he had asked Lily out on a date all those years ago?

"You could have told me too. I'd hoped you would. It's not like I would have told anyone. Well, other than Sev."

Remus grimaced at that, for reasons unknown to Lily, but said nothing. A couple of minutes passed in silence. Lily turned a page of her book theatrically. She hadn't actually finished reading the page she was on.

Remus sighed, and reached into his robes. He brought out a vial, and gave it to her.

"I heard you were looking for this."

Lily's eyes widened when she realized what the memory-filled vial was.

"It was an honour to have made your acquaintance, Lily Niamh Evans," said the werewolf, standing up. "I hope that one day you will forgive me."

Lily nodded, looking at the memory. "Thank you, John," she said softly. She wouldn't go as far as being on first name terms with him, but middle name terms was a suitable compromise.

"You're welcome, Niamh," he replied, taking the gesture for what it was.

She didn't look up as he left, and he didn't look back.

* * *

He was back in thirty minutes.

"More memories," he said, putting a couple of vials on her desk.

And then he was gone again.

This time, he didn't return.

* * *

_A month later:_

Bella was whistling.

There are some truly gifted whistlers in the world. In the small Greek village of Antia, everyone can whistle their speech. Shepherds in the Canary Islands whistle to communicate up to distances a few kilometres away. And millions of people can at least carry a melody.

Bella wasn't one of them.

Her whistling would convince the most devout atheist to get on their knees and beg the gods to take their ears away.

Her whistling would convince vultures to stay away from a fresh carcass.

Her whistling would make Margaret Thatcher give free milk to kiddies at lunchtime. (4)

Her whistling would raise the dead, and then cause them to immediately commit suicide.

Her whistling would cause Petunia Evans to open the door of Number 13 Ulmus Street - before she even had the chance to knock - and yell in her face, "WHAT in the name of all that is Holy do you think you doi-"

At which point Bella turned Petunia into a frog and walked into the house.

Lily had explained to her earlier that her parents had died in a car crash a couple of years ago and that she wasn't close to her sister. Bella presumed that Lily was telling her that she didn't have a chance of blackmailing her by threats to her family - which of course Bella had already contemplated.

"Petunia?" shouted Lily's voice from upstairs. "Has anyone arrived?"

Bella, glancing down at a bewildered amphibian, realized that she _still_ hadn't knocked. She shrugged, and shouted back up, "It's Bella! Are you ready to go?" She added in a lower voice, "Filthy daughter of dirty old maggot-eaten Muggles."

"Bella!" Lily sounded pleased. "You're here! Sorry, I've almost finished packing. Be down there in a jiffy!"

Wait? She had to wait? Bella was allergic to waiting, just as she was allergic to inconvenience, Mudbloods (allies and company excepted), Muggles (cartoonists and comic artists excepted), and parents who wanted to enslave her to uncouth brutes.

Needless to say, leaving Bella unattended in one's living room was a Bad Idea. The raven-haired witch looked at around. Looked down. How very curious. She hadn't realized that a frog could look pissed off.

She conjured a few worms, levitated them over to the amphibian, and amused herself watching it unsuccessfully fight against its instincts.

Lily arrived at the foot of the staircase to the sight of her (now unambiphified) older sister rushing up the stairs to their bathroom.

"What's up with her?" asked a worried Lily.

"Probably something she ate," said Bella calmly. She gave Lily's backpack a wide-eyed look. Its top towered a foot above Lily's petite frame. "By the goddess, why on earth haven't you shrunk that?"

Lily shifted her shoulders. "I'm not seventeen yet, remember? Underage laws and all that?"

Bella rolled her eyes. "Piffle. That law's only applicable to Mudbloods."

"Hello?" Lily pointed out, waving her hand. "Mudblood here!"

"True," admitted Bella. "Put that damn thing down. I'll shrink it."

Lily's gasped grunt of gratitude was interrupted by the sound of Petunia's wretched retching from upstairs. She gave Bella a speculative look, and then rushed up said stairs. Once again leaving Bella unattended in her living room. As might have been previously mentioned, this was a Bad Idea.

Bella jinxed a sofa and a big white box - the refrij - refrigid - refrigidizer - fridge - to randomly produce spectral frogs that hopped around the room.

Then she got bored again and decided to step outside and wait on the porch for Lily to join her.

By the time a fuming Lily had returned, muttering vile imprecations against older sisters and Muggle-baiting Pureblood bitches who should know better, Bella had already jinxed two bicycles, three car tyres, one chimney, and four Muggle boys who had had the _audacity_ to whistle at her. They wouldn't be able to tell a lie for the next week, which would be long enough to leave them friendless. After all, they were _boys_ and therefore unable to control themselves to keep their mouths shut.

"Ready to go then?" said Bella cheerily, tossing Lily a shrunken backpack. "Great! Right, one, two, we're off to see the Muggles -"

"Good grief," muttered Lily as Bella grabbed her and Apparated them out.

* * *

Severus Snape arrived at his apartment. It was a small place, but extensive use of expansion charms had given him two extra rooms, one of which was a Potions Lab.

Bella had informed him that she was arriving at midnight and that she was bringing a friend.

Good, that was six hours away. That gave him plenty of time to do some brewing. Susan was driving him hard, but he was learning, learning more than he ever had before. He'd be done with his Potions Mastery in two years at this rate.

He had just placed his black White Sox cap on the hat rack when he heard the sounds of an incoming Portkey.

Oh shit. There was such a thing as Time Zones.

He watched, horrified, as Bellatrix Black arrived arm in arm with Lily Evans.

They were both completely and totally and absolutely stone drunk.

He frantically reinforced the silencing charms in the apartment before the neighbours could complain that he was running a piggery-slash-abbatoir.

Lily, staggering in a most unappealing manner, finally saw him.

"SEVVY!"

His expression could have been found on the face of any number of deer facing the headlights of oncoming trucks.

"Bella! We died!" she exclaimed as she kissed him with a great deal of slobber and foul breath. "Look! We're in heaven and Sevvy's here to greet us!" She looked proudly at him. "You've cleaned up!"

And then she joined Bella on the floor.

Severus Snape blinked. He didn't think he was high on the list of people who would have two drunk and out-of-it girls in his living room.

He could do the right thing, and get the hell out of town. But then Bella would find him, and she'd kill him, and then Lily would find him, and she'd bring him back to life, and then Susan would find him, and she'd make a remark so cutting that he'd kill himself. All of which could have a non-positive effect on his self-esteem.

He stepped over their snoring bodies and went to prepare two extra beds in the guest room.

* * *

__

References:

(1) Hecate was an earthly Greek goddess of interest to witches and virgins. Her Roman equivalent was called - don't laugh - Trivia. Gandalf was a dude. Merlin was a dude. Morgan/a le Fay was smart enough not to be born a dude, and is a goodie or a baddie depending on who you ask. Nehanda was a 19th century Shona witch ('possessed of the lion spirit') who helped her people fight against the British invaders - she killed a British official, the Brits hanged her. Judith wasn't a witch, but she did do the peg-in-his-ear thing. See the Book of Judith (or the Wikipedia entry thereon) in the Catholic or Orthodox Bibles for details.

(2) Frederick Swindell was a Victorian bookie who ushered in the era of honest (yes, really) betting and odds in horse racing. Needless to say, his surname was a tad unfortunate.

(3) Jonathan Agnew is a cricket commentator, and responsible (with Brian Johnston) for a 1991 incident that BBC listeners once voted the Greatest Sporting Commentary of All Time. Quite ridiculous, really. Just because 'commuters were forced to stop their cars due to fits of hysterical laughter' while listening to him giggling on radio during a serious cricket match - all because he pointed out that some Botham guy had failed to have sex with the wicket... (sigh)... audio clips abound online.

(4) I apologize to the Baroness of Kesteven for this unflattering jab. The story goes like this: in the early 1970s, Margaret Thatcher was the Secretary of State for Education and Science in Britain, and had to balance a budget. She therefore made decisions that led to the abolition of free milk for children aged 7 to 11, causing the papers to heap her with vitriol and the title of "Milk Snatcher". The actual story is more complicated - she did fight to keep free milk for children younger than 7. More importantly, if she hadn't cut the milk, she might have had to let public libraries charge for lending books - and she really wanted to keep that free. Bingoogle 'Thatcher milk uk confidential' for a BBC report on the matter.


	6. The Fated Heroes Department

_A/N: Thanks very much for your reviews. They are appreciated, even if they are just one word saying 'thanks' or two words saying 'Update soon!' or three words saying 'Go to hell!'_

I've been asked if this fic is a crossover. Hmmm - just because I've nicked one character from the Discworld doesn't mean it is, does it? I don't plan to need any more. I needed a character who would fit the role of mentor/manipulator - the Dumbledore/Gandalf role, if you will - but was suitably no-nonsense, pretty, pretty bored, board-wielding-when-necessary, and capable of putting Bellatrix in her place. Susan was perfect, and came with an excellent Curriculum Vitae. She is the granddaughter (not genetically - um - it's complicated) of Death. Yes, Death - the scythe-wielding hooded skeleton guy that is the first thing people see when they die. You will not need to have ever read Pratchett's books to understand her, though the Wikipedia page on her is amusing and even educational.

SevereWrath made some suggestions on some of the lines in this and the previous chapter, which I've considered, agreed with, and made the due changes. Thanks! 

* * *

Susan Sto Helit looked at the grandfather clock in her living room. It had been a present from her grandfather a few centuries ago. The skeletal cuckoo in it said 'Cuckoo!' every time it felt it was time for her to give him a call. It said 'Cuckoo!' far too often, driving her batty.

She had tried to take the clock apart once. It came apart quite easily. Very easily. Too easily. The bloody bird had even hopped outside and offered advice. The next morning the clock had put itself back together again and was cuckooing at her in an annoyingly smug manner.

Fortunately, the weekly phone call was yesterday and she had six more days of freedom.

Which meant that the Sense of Impending Doom she'd been experiencing all day had to be there for some other reason. It couldn't be something bubbling in the Potions Lab - she'd checked, and her new apprentice was surprisingly scrupulous in his experiments. It couldn't be the food in the fridge being past its due date since Mrs Klinhowski had been in two days ago. It couldn't be that annoying little neighbour who kept giving her the Eye and scampering away before she could give him a Look that would turn him to ashes.

The doorbell rang and her internal S.I.D. detector spiked.

She grabbed a poker from the fireplace and approached the door. She peeped through the peephole and let out a violent stream of vitriol that only someone who'd been alive in 16th century Marseilles could truly appreciate.

She rubbed her forehead and opened the door, letting the visitor see her poker. Regrettably, his poker face remained unperturbed. Resisting the temptation to perturb said face with said poker, she let him in.

"I would say it's a pleasure to see you again, Hermes, but we'd both know that I was lying." (1)

Like any of the other gods of Mount Olympus, Hermes had the body of one. He was simply _oozing_ sex. Unfortunately for him, Susan was only concerned with the effect of its dripping on her carpet, and hurriedly urged him into the kitchen. The floor there was easier to clean.

"Is that any way to greet an old friend, Ms. Death?"

"Of course not," replied Susan "How fortunate it is that you don't fall in that category. Now, tell me why you're here so that you don't have to be here any more."

He tried giving her a winning smile, which was greeted, examined, and duly crushed by her winning glare. He gave up and got down to business.

"There have been a few decisions taken on the developing Voldemort situation in the British Isles."

Susan waited for him to continue. She'd been keeping track of that of course, Death being the family business. Every half century or so, some wizard or witch would make a Horcrux or two in a valiant effort to escape Grandad. Tom Riddle was the first one who'd managed to make five, and he still wasn't done. Unfortunately, she wasn't allowed to get in his way.

Or maybe she was. Perhaps the Powers That Be a.k.a. Dem Gods Who Gambled On Dem Mortals Coz Dey Wuz Major Bored, had finally come to their senses and allowed her to interfere.

She considered offering Hermes a chair.

"We note with great interest that you have already established contact with one of the prospects from the Fated Heroes Department." (2)

She considered offing Hermes using the chair.

"I WHAT?"

"Hey, I'm just a lowly messenger boy!" protested Hermes, backing away ever so slightly. "Please don't kill the messenger. I'd get resurrected, but it would be hell on my premiums. And Hera bet that you'd kill me. You wouldn't want Hera to win, would you? You hate Hera, don't you? She certainly hates you. She's got a whole cliff face with your face on it and throws fireballs at it on weekends. Please don't hurt m-"

Susan cut off his babbling. "It's the Dogsbody kid, isn't it? Or Mark or whatever his name is. Let me guess. You lot created a series of impossible events that led him to meet me and apprentice for me. Did you do anything else?"

Hermes shook his head, apparently more confident in the chances of Susan not slugging him. "No, he earned it. And he got to Chicago by himself. If he'd gotten himself to some other part of the world, we would have had some other Immortal deal with it."

"Hmph," huffed Susan. "How generous of you. So, what do you want me to do with the lad? He's a good worker, and is actually capable of some independent thought, so I do plan to make a Potions Master out of him. What do you spectral busybodies plan to do with him during his off hours? I wasn't planning on giving him that many, you know."

Hermes took three folders out of the inside pocket of his toga suit. On the front of each was a moving photograph. One of them was Fido 'Mark' Dogsbody, though the file said 'Severus Tobias Snape'. The second had a redhead called Lily Niamh Evans. She had a pleasant smile. The third was of a raven-haired woman called Bellatrix Auva Black (3). She had an unpleasant sneer.

"So these are your fated heroes?" asked a skeptical Susan. "These _kids_? You want these tots to, what, kill Tom Riddle?"

"Oh no!" protested Hermes, sounding suitably horrified. "Sending kids to kill a Dark Lord would be inhumane!"

"Last time I checked, shagging a mortal while dressed up as a swan was inhumane. Didn't stop your chief honcho from doing it." (4)

Hermes ignored the aspersion. "First they get trained, then they won't be kids any more, and then they'll go kill the Dark Lord."

Susan stepped away from the folders. "Oh no. I'm not doing this. I'm not training them. You want me to train people to kill a Horcrux user, that's fine. But give me real people to work with. Not this - this cannon fodder."

"The Fated Heroes Department has done several tests to indicate that they are capable of the task. And there might be a fourth one coming in later. Point is, they are Certified Fated Heroes and it is our solemn duty to guide them to their fate."

"I'll tell you who should be certified."

"So you'll do it?"

"Do I have a choice?"

"Is the Pope Polish?" (5)

* * *

Lily opened her eyes groggily and saw Sev standing a few feet from her bed. He raised an eyebrow at her.

She screamed.

This caused Bella to wake up, and reflexively shoot a stunner at the wizard. If Lily hadn't been gibbering at the time, she might have been impressed at the way Bella went from Asleep to Being Able To Hex to Awake.

The red light passed straight through Severus.

Bella groaned, "Fido, you yellow-bellied coward!" and flopped back onto her pillow.

"Bella?"

"Yes, Mudblood?"

"What is Sev's ghost doing here?"

"Fido's not a ghost," muttered Bella. She raised her voice. "THOUGH HE WILL BE IF HE DOESN'T GET IN THIS ROOM AND GIVE ME A HANGOVER POTION! RIGHT NOW!"

Lily heard a loud - and rather resigned - sigh and some scuffling from the next room. And then her world exploded as the late Severus Snape entered her bedroom with a couple of vials. He gave one to Bella, who downed it and promptly pulled a second pillow on top of her head. She muttered something from under it, which was presumably a threat for Severus to get far away and leave her in peace.

Severus rolled his eyes and cast a silencing ward around him and Lily. He was standing by the redhead's bed now, his hand outstretched, offering her a vial of hangover potion.

"You're dead! You're dead?" she was muttering, holding her head.

"The report of my death was an exaggeration," (6) he muttered, wondering when the cushioning charms around his torso would get pounded by a grief-anger-relief-whatnot-stricken Lily. She was the pounding type.

"You're not dead?" she asked in a small voice, taking the vial at last.

"We faked it."

Lily's mind was in turmoil. A lot of this was due to the hangover, so she quickly downed the potion.

"You faked it," she said in a cold voice, after the room had stopped spinning.

"I'll just be in the next room then, shall I?" mumbled Severus. He glanced at the alternate version of himself in the corner and vanished it before Lily remembered its existence.

He _had_ had it all planned out. He would place a remote-controlled illusion of himself next to Lily's bed. She would wake up, the illusion would explain to her that he wasn't actually pushing daisies, Lily would explode and rail at the illusion until her temper wore off. Then he would enter the room and take whatever she had left to dish out, which would be a lot less now that she would have got it out of her system.

Funny how things don't work out.

Lily was looking at him like she didn't approve of his non-dead status.

Of course, she wouldn't actually modify said status. But she might make him wish for such a modification.

He, being of a sensible and non-Gryffindor disposition, did the logical thing and fled the room.

Lily threw her bed covers off and dashed after him. Behind her, Bella flicked her wand to steal her pillows and bury herself deeper under them.

Severus had managed to reach the front door of the apartment when Lily reached him and embraced him in one of her patented Lily-hugs. She was alternately crying out "I'm so sorry!" and "You're alive!" and "I'm so sorry!" and "You're alive!" and producing other inane demonstrations of her lack of conversational diversity.

He was oddly relieved when she got around to pounding on his chest. He wasn't used to all this emotional stuff. Emotions had only served to hurt him in life, so he habitually wrapped them in cotton and stored them in his mental cupboard. But physical abuse - that was familiar. That he could deal with.

OOF!

Urgle.

Thud.

But did she really have to knee him in the goolies?

And now she was going all emotional again. Bugger.

* * *

Number 12 Grimmauld Place was the 1975 House Of The Year in Magical Britain. The judges for Witch Weekly were quite unanimous about it, and Druella Black hadn't even had to bribe them (more than any of the other contenders had bribed them).

It was a gleaming house, with a ton of rooms and a very homey feeling. There was a room for everything, though the judges didn't have time to see all of them.

For instance, they had missed the Cups Room. It was filled with cups. Some were clay. Some were glass. Some were china.

Druella loved the crystal cups most of all, because they made the best sound when she threw them into the wall.

Her house elf, a Good Solid Elf called Kreacher, made sure she didn't run out of them.

To call Druella furious would be like calling a blue whale big, a brain complicated, or football a matter of life and death (7). In other words, it was a technically correct description of the situation, but wholly inadequate in conveying just how big/complex/important/furious the animal/organ/sport/inebriated-witch was.

First, Andromeda had run off to marry a Mudblood. A Mudblood! Had she no shame? The girl would be better off marrying a horse. At least then she'd get properly shagged. Not, of course, that Druella would know about such things.

Bellatrix was a nice sensible girl, with her head screwed on right. None of that Muggle-loving nonsense.

What on earth could have possessed Trixie to run away? She had a wonderful future ahead of her, married to a lovely young Pureblood gentleman who was up and coming in the Ministry and Polite Society - why would she pull an Andromeda? Druella had even gone to the trouble of making all those lovely potions to help her along the way... where was the damn girl's gratitude?

By Morgana. Young people these days.

Bellatrix had better find her gratitude before her father found her.

And he would find her.

And she would pay.

Because nobody, absolutely nobody, got the better of Cygnus Black.

(Other than Andromeda, but she had been declassified as a human being and therefore didn't count.)

* * *

__

**References:**

(1) Hermes is the Greek Messenger of the Gods, famous for his winged sandals and his love for tortoises and cocks (8). His Roman equivalent is Mercury.

(2) First seen in an anti-Mongolian remark in the Mudbrains fic, where Harry says to Ginny, "If there's another prophecy out there that predicts that I'm all that stands against the Dark Lady Granger, I'm heading straight for the Fated Heroes Department and requesting a redeployment to Ulan Bator."

(3) Auva, like Bellatrix, is a star.

(4) According to Greek mythology, Leda was a princess who was seduced (or worse) by Zeus. Zeus was in the form of a swan at the time, clearly indicating the immense superiority and general depravity of Ancient Greek fanfiction writers. Anyway, poor Leda laid two eggs, one of which hatched Helen, of Troy and Thousand Ships fame. This also makes Leda and Zeuswan the grandparents of Helen's daughter Hermione, which is an avenue that fanfiction writers have miserably failed to pursue. On an unrelated and purely fictional note, the well-known saying 'Have unprotected sex with a duck and you will lay eggs' has roots in this incident. Scholars consider the change in the avian involved has to do with the Laughlab Hypothesis that any statement involving an animal sounds more droll if the animal is a duck.

(5) This is 1976. There hadn't been a non-Italian Pope in over 450 years, and the idea of a Pope from a Communist country was ludicrous. The former amateur goalkeeper and current Archbishop of Krakow, Karol Wojtyla, was elected Pope as a compromise candidate in 1978. Hermes' remark also refers to the fact that Chicago has the largest population of Poles outside Warsaw.

(6) There are several variations of this Mark Twain quote, some of which were made by Mr Clemens himself. See twainquotes dot com / death dot html for a facsimile of the original handwritten note from May 1897.

(7) Bill Shankly, the legendary Liverpool football coach, said in a 1981 interview "Someone said, 'Football is a matter of life and death' and I said, 'Listen, it's more important than that'." It wasn't entirely original - he nicked it from Henry Sanders, a 1950s UCLA coach of rugby-with-protection who made a similar statement in reference to a college rivalry. (PS: Before anyone accuses me of being anti-certain-country, I would like to point out that I consider baseball a far superior sport to cricket and Buffy a superior heroine to Supergran.)

(8) Roosters. 


	7. Siblings of Comics and Blood

__

Thanks to kittydemon18, Severe Wrath, evenstar101, and Blackguard83 for reviewing all six of the chapters so far! Also thanks to KJS X-OVER (5 chapters reviewed), duj (also 5), Escoger (3), Joyce LaKee (3), amethystwerewolf (2), Davek86 (2), Fallen Angel111586 (2), Kirai-Ninja (2), The French Dark Lord (2), toffeepop (2), xxcallmecrazyxx (2), 8thweasleykid, Accio, bookwyrm, Deviate Fish, Lilith, markim, matrice, Ms. Geek, Robina, ry, sanityfaerie, Sean Mulligan, and valerie. I do hope I counted correctly... if I didn't let me know and I'll correct it.

Thanks also to the rest of you, particularly those who have added story alerts but left no reviews, for almost succeeding in giving me more of my free time back i.e. encouraging me to abandon this fic.

* * *

Bella showed no signs of waking up, so the two Lancastrian teenagers decided to let her be. Severus wrote her a note.

What he wanted to write went something like this:

_Gone out to eat with Evans. Back by two pm. If you see a grotty grey cat with a lurid pink collar, don't hex, feed, eat, or poison it. It's the neighbours' moggy. Do not hex, hurt, humiliate or in any way harm the neighbours if you meet them. Do not go outside. Do not buy anything from anyone. Do not let anyone in the house. Do not Hex the birds outside the window. Do not turn the stove on. Do not burn down the apartment. Do not break the Statute of Secrecy. Do not tell anyone that you are related to me by birth. Do not ask anyone about what they think of Magic. Do not break my jazz records. Do go back to bed. _

What he actually wrote was rather more succint. Bella's attention span wasn't great when it came to non-life-threatening situations or taking instructions from little brothers.

_ Gone out to lunch with Evans. Back by two pm. Will bring food. Comics on sofa. Biscuits on comics. _

Severus resisted the temptation to write 'Don't leave biscuit crumbs on sofa'. He had a feeling that such a preemptive admonition would result in their coming home to see the sofa evenly covered with a thin sheen of crushed bikkie.

Lily glanced at the note. "Oh, you know about the comics then?"

Severus shrugged as he tossed her a wide straw hat that he had transfigured earlier. "I wouldn't know. She told me to have some Peanuts paperbacks around. The Newsoms next door have a great many, and were happy to oblige." He held the door open for her as he put on his trusty cap.

"She's a big fan of Lucy," said Lily as she stepped outside their second floor apartment and headed for the stairs. (1)

Severus locked the door behind them with the Muggle key and followed her. "That makes sense," he mused. "She has much in common with the character of Lucy van Pelt."

"With you as her Schroeder?" asked Lily with a grin.

Severus visibly shuddered.

"I would hope not," he replied after taking some moments to recover. "I seem to be cast in the role of Linus. I expect she will expect me to spout scripture in due course."

"Linus?" asked Lily, confused.

"I'm Bella's little brother."

"Huh?"

Lily waited for Severus to speak. When he didn't for a couple of minutes, she prodded him with her shoulder. He seemed surprised.

"Huh?" This time, he was the one asking.

"You were talking about being Bella's little brother. I asked you how that happened."

"Oh," replied Severus, but he didn't elaborate.

They passed the next few minutes in silence. It was a nice day for a walk, and Severus said the restaurant was fifteen minutes away.

Lily was finding it hard to take her eyes off him. She still couldn't believe he was here, alive. She had seen him die in the Pensieve memory that Remus had given her. She had seen him repeatedly kicked, punched, and Hex by Potter's gang. Somehow he'd survived.

"I framed them."

Lily waited for him to continue. When he did, it was in a cold, unemotional tone. A tone she recognized from the times he would turn up at her house with a split lip or a bruised cheek and ask if she wanted to play. His voice would go into the Tone when she wanted to know here the injuries came from. After a while, she stopped asking. Tobias Snape became a taboo subject for them.

"That's what you're wondering about, isn't it? I framed your noble little Gryffindor gang. I put up the Aggression ward, I'd cast several anaesthetic charms on myself, I didn't feel much pain. All in the vain hope of getting them expelled. I had not anticipated that the ward would be discovered. Happy now? I'm a dark monster who would think nothing about ruining the lives of four innocent little boys."

This time, Lily didn't respond. They had walked a few blocks now. It was a primarily residential neighbourhood, with folks of different colours walking, walking dogs, talking, pushing prams, and walking about with glazed eyes as if thinking about something very important or nothing in particular. Lily pointed one out to Severus.

"Graduate student," he replied succintly. "I wouldn't speculate on the discipline."

For the rest of their walk to the restaurant - Medici's, it was called - Lily asked Severus about everything except his confession. She asked about the buildings. She asked about the nearby Muggle university. She asked about the people selling drugs at the corners. At which point Severus told her he'd been into that business, and she calmly went on to ask about how he was settling in Chicago and how long he planned on staying.

He was very confused. He didn't trust her. He always had - he'd even fancied himself in love with her - but then she'd abandoned him, just like everyone else did. He wouldn't allow her to get close to him again. If he told her about everything he'd done, she'd be disgusted with him and stay away from him. It didn't count as abandonment if you encouraged the other party to abandon you.

He finally reached for her hand, and twirled her around so he was looking at her. He wanted to ask her just what she was up to.

Unfortunately, this was a singularly bad idea. It was those bloody green eyes of hers. He could look into them for ...

_Crud._

She looked mildly bewildered as he turned her around again, and firmly nudged her in the direction that they had been walking.

"Is it always this hot in June?" she asked.

And there she went again, behaving like a bloody Slytherpuff...

* * *

Bella woke up. Bella stretched her arms out theatrically. Bella realized she had no audience. Bella grumbled to herself. Bella dragged her tush out of bed and headed to the bathroom. Bella relieved herself. Bella performed eighteen ablutory and cosmetic charms, which was a third of what her little sister did. It only took two minutes, as she could practically do them in her sleep. (She wasn't a morning person, so this was often necessary.)

A grey feline with a criminally pink collar was sitting in the living room window when she got there. She didn't bother glaring at it - she had long accepted her inferiority to felines in the task of displaying insouciance - but did cast an _Animagus Reverto_ spell at it. It bounced off, to her relief.

She could do without the excitement.

It had been an exciting week for her, and all she wanted now was peace and quiet.

Doing a runner was a difficult job, no matter what an athlete's spouse might say. The easiest part was running away with her Trust Fund. She'd split it into four accounts, two Magical (both Gringotts), two Muggle (one Barclays, one UBS). Plus a decent chunk in cash.

The hard part was making sure that her family - the family she loved, loathed, and feared - didn't find her. That had been tricky, and she wasn't entirely sure that she had succeeded. Still, the Dark adoption ritual she had performed with Snape - now, there was a good story - had made her a Prince, and thus impervious to tracking by the even Darker family location spells.

CRASH!

Several thoughts went through Bella's head as the door to the apartment was smashed in. One had to do with the removal of uncertainty - she was now absolutely certain that The Family had found her. Another had to do with the fact that she was still in pyjamas. The third was along the lines of 'Oh fuckity fuck fuck!' The fourth was that she was clearly dealing with a rank amateur, since such an obviously violent entry was soooo 1940s. Not, of course, that she'd been around at the time - but her favourite Jane Bondarenko books (2) said so.

A wave of red light hit the room as he tossed in a stunning grenade. Bella barely managed to cast a shielding spell.

Silence.

The runaway witch quickly cast an illusion spell on the sofa, making it seem like her unconscious body was there. Then she waited.

It didn't take long for the intruder to enter the house.

Bella, crouching in the doorway between the kitchen and the living room, waited for him to take a few steps in before she stunned him non-verbally from behind. He collapsed, falling forward. Bella hoped he had broken his nose. And if he hadn't, she could more than willing to rectify the situation. She entered the living room and levitated the wizard so she could have a look at him.

"Greetings, daughter mine."

Bella acted instantaneously at the sound of the new voice. She whipped her wand to the right, causing the stunned body to crash in the direction of the door. Unfortunately, the newcomer was smarter than his predecessor and had already stepped aside.

Father and daughter faced each other.

"It's time for little girls to go home," said Cygnus Black.

Bella gulped.

* * *

The clientele at Medici's was a smorgasbord of towns and gowns - native Hyde Parkers, students, professors, doctors, construction workers. The decor was like a pub, with lots of dented wood and scraped seats.

Lily seemed to like it well enough, and was tearing through her burger. She left the fries alone, so Severus helped himself to them. They offered some solidity with his salad.

"I am curious to see you and Bella together," he said, poking at an errant piece of lettuce.

Lily sipped some of her hot chocolate. "She wants to explore the Muggle world and employed me as a guide."

"You're getting paid?"

"Yeah. Not much, but hey, it's the summer. I get to go abroad. It should be fun, even if she insists on calling me a Mudblood every other sentence."

Severus stiffened. Lily swallowed. She'd been practising for so long what she planned to say to her old friend. And now that he was here, standing - sitting right in front of her...

"I owe you an apology, Severus."

His eyes widened. Ever so slightly, of course, but Lily knew him well enough to tell.

"I was offended, and I was worried by your friends, but - I know things were more complicated than I had imagined. I was naive. I was oversensitive. It was wrong of me to have given up on our friendship, to have ignored your apologies. I -"

Lily's tearful apology was interrupted by Severus.

"Did anyone see you with Bella?"

"Er - What?"

"Did anyone at Hogwarts ever see you talking with Bellatrix?"

"Er, yes, quite a few actually, but -"

"DAMN!" shouted Severus, causing a shocked silence among the diners aorund them. Lily's jaw dropped. He got up, grabbed a few bills from his wallet, and slapped them on the table. "Come on!"

"Severus, what on earth -"

"Get up, we've got to talk to Bella _now_!" he hissed, heading for the exit.

Apologizing to an approaching waiter and pointing to the money on the table, Lily grabbed the rest of her burger and a couple of chips and hurried after him.

* * *

Bella had never met a Boggart. But if she had, it would look like the sight in front of her. She loved her father. She also feared him. Cygnus Black had never made it a secret that his daughters were failures for being of the female persuasion. Most of his anger went to Andromeda, who he had beaten and Crucioed multiple times. When she ran away and the end of the previous summer, Bella had been his next target - and it had been brutal enough to cause her mother to bring in a Healer. Nobody ever knew - Bella had Obliviated the Healer herself for the sake of the family honour. It was Right And Proper, in Bella's mind, that someone should suffer for her sister's running away.

That was then.

Bella thought differently now.

Distracting her father with a slight flick of her wand, she activated one of the defensive charms on her left hand and jumped out of the window.

* * *

"What on earth is going on, Sev?" demanded Lily as they ducked into an alley.

He turned to her with a genuinely worried expression. After a couple of long moments of thought, he decided to explain. "Bella is running away from her parents."

"WHAT?" cried Lily, shocked.

"They were going to marry her off to some imbecile, using an Obsequium Potion."

Lily opened her mouth to speak. Severus waved his hand impatiently to cut her off.

"Let me finish. It's a slavery potion. She would have gone mad if she fought it. So she ran. Since there are blood rituals that can be used to track anyone down using the blood of a family member, they would have found her unless she became blood bound to another family. So she joined mine. She is a Prince now - not Snape, that's Muggle. Prince is the magical family of my mother's."

Lily's mouth was open. "Blood magic?" she said weakly. "But that's -"

"Yes, it's Dark Magic. It's all Dark. I'm not one of your Gryffindor Light Wizards, Lily, and I hope to Merlin I never will be."

Lily said nothing. It was a curious rearrangement of the argument they had had a year ago. They were on Severus' turf now. She was not the naive little girl she was then. He was not the desperate and angry little boy he was then either. And while the words of Sama rang in her ears, it was difficult to get past years of prejudice against Dark Magic. She didn't want to see Severus riding a tiger and unable to get off.

"The problem is," continued Severus, ignoring her mental plight, "that while they can't track Bella, they can track _you_."

Someone tossed a figurative penny out a figurative window, and it landed on Lily's head.

"Oh my God," she cried. "Tuney! She knows I'm travelling with Bella! She's in danger!"

"Shit!" swore Severus, pacing. "Bellatrix has no excuse. She should have told you. She should have told _me_ she was dragging you into this. She should have anticipated this." He grabbed Lily's arms suddenly, so suddenly that she flinched. "Shush. Hang on to me."

Nothing happened.

"Apparition wards?" asked Lily, the ominous nature of the situation becoming more real every second.

"I'll get us nearby," he said, and they _crack_ed out.

This time they appeared in a different alley. He let her go and began running in the direction of a block of flats. She didn't recognize it, since buildings always look different from the back.

There was a crashing sound, and they saw Bella falling to the ground. Severus whipped his wand to cast a slowing charm, but Bella already had that covered.

"By the seventh dildo of Morgana!" muttered Lily as she rushed after the wizard. She really had been spending too much time with the Pureblood witch.

She looked up a couple of floors, to see a face looking through the broken window. The figure shot off a series of putrid violet Hexes at Bella, who was scrambling desperately to get out of the way. It was too far for her to aim properly, but Lily shot off one of her modified buckshot jinxes in his direction. It wouldn't hurt him much, but it would distract him, giving Bella more time. Somewhat to Lily's surprise, her aim wasn't that bad, and she saw him jump back.

Then a green light hit the window and the man disappeared.

A series of cracks signalled the arrival of the cavalry.

* * *

It is an undisputed fact of life that the cavalry always knows who the Indians are.

At the moment, Lily was very much in dispute of this fact.

She, Bella, and Severus were being held in separate Magical cells. Lily figured the Aurors - or Majakes as they were called in this part of the world - were getting the stories from each of them separately.

She supposed that spellcasting in public view of Muggles was a criminal offence in America too. After all, it was an _International_ Statute of Secrecy. And even if Americans often felt that international rules didn't apply to them - at least her dad had often said so at the dinner table - in this case they were rather in line with the rest of the Magical World.

An angry dumpy witch entered her cell and slapped a folder theatrically on a tri-legged stool that suddenly sprung up in the middle of the room. On a good day, Lily supposed Dumpy was capable of a quite pleasant smile. Sadly, it did not appear that this was such a day.

"Thixteen!" hissed Dumpy, who apparently had a lisp. "We had to Obliviate thixteen Regularth. Do you know how much that taketh out of our budget! I could have you thweepin' floorth in here for the next thix month and it thill wouldn't make up the defithit!"

"Er - sorry?" offered Lily, who was unnerved by the sheer energy emanating from the steaming woman. She didn't even notice the lisp, as her favourite maternal gran had had one.

"Thorry? THORRY!" yelled the short witch in her face. "I need a barfin' thorry like a whale needth a barfin' hole in the barfin' head!"

Lily considered pointing out the existence of blowholes, but decided that she could be a Gryffindor in the morning. Like, a morning three months from now. She'd pencil it in. She also pencilled in 'barfing' - or 'barfin' - in her little yellow book of insults.

"Why?" said Dumpy, suddenly switching to a soft, gentle voice. "Why not do like the Haitianth and use invithible Hexeth that are accompanied by gunthots? It's makes Obliviationth far leth nethetharry. Do you know how much of a budget thurpluth the Haiti Majake Department hath?"

Lily confessed that she wasn't actually aware of the figure in question. She would have confessed to many things at that point, including using a time turner to kill JFK, Spencer Percival, and the prophet Elijah.

Dumpy's yelling was paused by the sound of a couple of voices outside. The Majake glared at Lily, made it quite clear that the sixteen year old girl was headed for a life of distinction as a 'theller of thloppy thecondth in Thalamanca', and left the cell.

After a couple of minutes, during which Lily thought about nothing in particular, Dumpy returned to the cell with a slight woman of indeterminate age. She had a shock of frizzy white hair with a black stripe running through the center of it.

"You are Lily Niamh Evans, of New Mills, England?" asked the newcomer. (4)

Lily cautiously nodded.

"My name is Susan. I have already collected your friends. You are not in as much trouble as you were before I showed up. You are still in trouble. Follow me, please."

* * *

__

A/N: And the revelations continue. Bet you thought that all that business about Sev being Bella's little brother was just a joke, eh? Nope... of course, the question still remains of why Severus would agree to such a deal.

Lily and Sev won't be falling into each other's arms straight away. They aren't even eighteen, after all. Lily does not think of Severus as more than a friend, and is rightly worried at the moment that she may not even be his friend. Severus' earlier crush on her is decidedly crushed and mangled right now, as he has major abandonment issues. They have to work up a new history of trust and friendship before anything further can develop. See other people (not Marauders, but decent people) and all that.

I believe that the last scene could be offensive to anyone with a lisp. I would apologize, but that would be hypocritical of me as I'm leaving the scene in as is. Before you flame me, I should add that we haven't seen the last of Dumpy. She's a fun character, actually.

(1) The Lucy van Pelt attitude to Right And Proper Siblinghood can be summarized in the following utterance of hers. "Why don't you be a good little brother and go make me a jelly bread sandwitch? If you don't I'm going to leap on you and pound you right through the floor! So why don't you make me that jelly-bread sandwich, huh? Please, dear brother?"

I am in love with Charles Schulz. Well, I would be if he wasn't old, taken, and dead.

(2) This is a reference to the famous children's book series of Elsa Fleming-Jones of the 1930s and 40s. It was aimed at the young witch market, though some young - and not so young - wizards were known to read it on the sly. The protagonist was a female Unspeakable from a Noble Pureblood family who went around saving the world from evil Muggle plots to destroy the world. The chief villain was a "filthy little Mudblood with dubious morals" called Emma Granger. A first edition copy signed in blood by the author was auctioned off for a hundred thousand galleons in 2004 by Sothegotts.

(3) Jakes is Los Angeles urban slang for cops. Majake sounds like Magick, though it is unclear on when this terminology originated, as my usual ex-LA-cop-contact is not currently available for consultation. (Don't ask. Besides, it was my fault.)

(4) Claire Jordan wrote an excellent article "Where is Spinner's End?" that can be found on the HP Lexicon, where she suggests New Mills as a possibility. Only a possibility, mind - most Sev fics use Claire's research to place his home in the Manchester area.


	8. Catfights and Cats

A/N:_ duj pointed out that while we got to see Lily meet Susan in a cell, we didn't get to see the equivalent Bella scene. This takes care of that._

_And since my long chapter of last time got the least reviews ever, I've switched back to short chapters. Readers are always right, after all..._

* * *

**Catfights and Cats**

Bella hadn't said very much since her confrontation with her father.

She was, by her own admission, not the most all-together of individuals. She had admitted it to one of Narcissa's dolls once, shortly before she used it for target practice.

Right now she was in the mind of her twelve year old self, crying in a corner where no-one could find her, trying to hum so that she couldn't hear her older sister's screams as their father Hexed her.

She had been crouching in the corner of the room, holding her arms around her protectively, and humming.

She switched the pose to a more nonchalant one the moment the door opened. But she had a feeling that the new witch in the room - and she was a witch of some kind, for Bella could feel the power rolling off her - had noticed.

"You are Bellatrix Auva Black?" asked the witch.

Bella considered her. She was somewhere between - oh, forty and ninety years, give or take twenty-three-and-a-half years. Small, with a strangly white mop of hair that had a black stripe through it.

"I might be," offered Bella.

There wasn't even a blur of frenzied movement. One moment, she was looking at the newcomer standing several feet from her. The next moment, there was a sharp blade adjacent to her throat.

"I got this scythe in Minsk," said the old woman conversationally. "It's a pretty little town, with the best kvass in the world. Now, will you follow me, or do I need to offer you some extra persuasion?"

Bella still hesitated. She'd been in close contact with sharp objects before. She wasn't scared yet. Merely ... a tad uneasy?

There was a flash of light, and the woman's face turned into a skull for an instant. A shining gleaming translucent smiling skull with perfect dental work.

Bella and Fear got duly acquainted and exchanged Owl addresses.

Another moment passed, and the woman was standing in her original position, as if nothing had happened.

"You are Bellatrix Auva Black?"

Right. Bella could do Nothing Ever Happened. Especially if it was accompanied with a side order of And If You Think It Did I'll Hex Your Nipples Off.

"Yes, ma'am."

"Good. My name is Susan. Your blood brother is my Potions Apprentice. Follow me, if you would."

Bella clambered to her feet as elegantly as she could, and followed. She didn't consider asking what would happen if she didn't. Indeed, her primary thought was, "This is Potions Mistress Sto Helit? How is Severus still alive?"

* * *

Severus, for his part, was the first person retrieved by Susan Sto Helit. His heart had dropped when he saw her - no apprentice ever wanted to be dragged out of a police cell - or Majake warded force-field - by their Mistress. He hadn't been this embarassed since the school saw his underpants.

It had taken him ten minutes to explain the entire situation to her. It had shocked him that he had been so willing to do so. Perhaps it was the Magical Bond created by their Apprentice Oath. Perhaps it was the sense of power she radiated - no, that couldn't be it, because then he would have trusted Headmaster Dumbledore. Perhaps it was his desperation to prove to her that he was worthy of her trust. Perhaps it was his underlying hope - and since when did _he_ have hope? - that she was on his side.

Or maybe it was the Veritaserum in the chocolate she had given him when he was out of the cell. Not that there was any evidence of such - though he was pretty sure it was laced with a calming potion of some kind. He would ask her about it later. Chocolate as a medium for delivering potions was an active topic of research these days, especially in children's hospitals.

"Mistress Sto Helit," he had asked after his explanation, "not that I'm not grateful, but why did you come for us? How did you even know we were here?"

"A little cat told me," she had said, leaving him even more confused. "Now go and wait for me in room 11B down the corridor. I will fetch your friends."

Sure enough, a rather shaken Bellatrix joined him in the room after five minutes, followed by a bewildered Lily after another three minutes.

And then Lily pounced.

"You have most interesting friends," commented Susan, to Severus' continuing mortification. "Oh my. The redhead just drew blood. Are they virgins, by any chance? There's always a need for more virgin blood in our stores."

Severus looked at her, horrified. Then, despite the catfight in progress before him, considered the question. Lily was probably a virgin. Bella he wasn't sure about, and never planned to ask, in case her first experience hadn't been consensual. It was always an issue in their House, and Bella hadn't always been on top of the Slytherin social scrapheap.

He finally took his head out of his thoughts and Petrified the grappling girls. Then he seemed rather petrified himself - what was he supposed to do next? He looked at Susan beseechingly.

"Don't look at me," she huffed. "I'm perfectly happy doing my Switzerland impression. Neutrality and all that."

"I thought the Swiss were mediators?" Severus pointed out.

Death's granddaughter considered this. "You make a valid point. Fine. You're Swiss, I'm Vulcan"

Severus was tired, confused, and unable to muster the energy for further politeness. He glared at his mentor, who looked at her watch.

"Speaking of Vulcans, I've got to talk to Leonard Nimoy," said Susan. On seeing her apprentice's blank look, she explained further. "He's a pussy. Look, I'll be back in thirty minutes. You get these women of yours into some kind of civil truce. Use all tools available to you, including diplomacy, guilt tripping, bribery, threats, and potions. I'll be back."

Severus wasn't entirely sure he wanted her back, but nodded.

The problem with Petrifying someone was that they remained conscious, with their senses of sight, hearing, and smell intact. While Petrificus Totalus was useful for social tasks such as, say, torture and interrogation, what it currently meant was that Severus was faced with two angry women staring balefully at _him_.

He wondered why his Mistress had not included Offering The Duelling Parties A Common Enemy in her list of mediating tools. He figured, regretfully, that it was because he didn't need to be reminded of a tool that he had already employed.

He grabbed their wands, left the room, downed an anaesthetic potion (a good Apprentice carried at least two dozen vials of emergency potions on them at any time), cast a few shield charms on himself, placed a silencing charm on the room, and returned.

"Finite Incantatem," he cast, verbally for a change.

Apparently Lily hadn't finished yelling "You killed my sister, you bitch!", which she now repeated for about the sixth time. Bella repeated her basic "Who cares about a stupid Muggle?" mantra. Severus considered becoming religious for the sole purpose of having some divine entity to blame.

"QUIET!" he yelled. "SHUT UP, BOTH OF YOU!"

"Did you just tell me to shut up?" asked Bellatrix, in a voice she had perfected on her little sister's dolls while melting their heads over a candle flame.

"Are you going to side with your Mudblood hating sister?" asked Lily, in a voice that brought back extremely bad memories.

"Petunia's not dead, you dunderheads. And we are going to go to England to get her back."

Severus wondered where on earth that remark had come from. Certainly not from his brain, even if it had been uttered by his mouth. Clearly, he was being possessed by some other entity. He absolutely refused to believe that the entity might be his conscience and sense of right and wrong. Oh no. He didn't have one of those. Consciences were very nice in theory, but were an absolute millstone in practice. They got you in all sorts of trouble, like in danger of being killed, or being on the receiving end of a desperate and near worshipful look from Lily Evans.

Bella looked like a bedraggled vampire kitten that had just been denied a nice ball of yarn and a hamster to suck on. "What is this _we_?" she asked.

"Petunia's not dead?" asked a wide-eyed Lily.

"Of course she's not bloody dead. She might be beaten to within an inch of her life, but she's not dead yet," said Severus, doing his best to puncture her optimism. "They won't be able to use the tracking spell if she's dead. And they still want to track Bella. So you can't kill her yet, Lily, because then they'll have no reason to keep your sister alive."

"As if she could kill me," huffed Bella.

Lily pounced on her again.

Severus could have screamed, and did.

Lily screamed as well, because Bella had tugged her hair while receiving Lily's fist in her stomach. Bella, for her part, wheezed.

Severus got into the middle of them and forcefully pushed the two from each other. They separated, more out of surprise and the need to catch a breath before Round Three than anything else.

"Bella, who attacked you?" demanded Severus.

Lily suppressed her desire to break Bella's nose - she was seriously miffed that it still looked like a nose - and listened.

It took a few moments, but the raven-haired witch finally answered. "There were two of them. The first one was some hired thug. I stunned him. The second one was - was Cygnus Black."

Silence.

"Isn't that your dad?" asked Lily in a disbelieving voice.

"He fathered me, yes."

"Oh. But he tried to hurt you!" Lily didn't know what to say. If she hadn't ever seen the effects of Tobias Snape on Severus, she would never have thought that other people didn't have fathers like she had. Her dad had been - well, like she'd thought all dads were. Nice. Good to cuddle up to. Smelling of wood chips and sweat and soap and general daddiness. She'd been devastated when he and her mother had been killed in that car crash at the start of her fifth year. (She and Sev had been allowed to go to the funeral. It was the only time she'd ever seen Sev shed a tear. He'd been close to them as well.)

Bella looked at Lily as if she was from another planet. In a way, she was.

"Key word there - _tried_. I jumped out the window before he could Avada me."

"Don't be ridiculous," said Snape. "He wouldn't have done that. He would have slit your throat, left you to bleed to death, waited till you almost had, then shoved the Obsequium Potion down your throat, healed you, stunned you, taken you back to Britain, and married you off to get raped for the rest of your miserable life."

* * *

Leonard Nimoy had pointy ears. Unlike his celebrity namesake, his were natural. Also, he was black.

He was sitting in a tree when the walking skeleton showed up. He never could understand why the other humans around her didn't see her for what she was. But then again, they were human. And she was a reasonably interesting conversationalist, unlike most apes.

"What do you want?" he hissed at her. "You're early."

Susan blinked, and looked at her watch. Sure enough, she was two minutes early for their weekly meeting.

"It's only a couple of minutes," she pointed out. "It's not like you're doing anything else. Why don't we get started?"

"I'm getting a sun tan."

"You're a cat. You don't need a suntan. Besides, you're in a tree."

"Shows what you know, primate. I'm still sleeping."

"You're not sleeping," Susan pointed out. "You're talking to me."

"I'm dreaming," protested Leonard Nimoy, flicking his tail at her to emphasize the point. "You're in my dream. I am responding to your moronic statements in my dream. My mouth is sleeptalking."

"Even by your standards, that was pathetic."

"I am your numero uno informant in the CCC. Stop treating me like your pet dog."

"I don't have a pet dog."

"Well done, you tasteful individual. But if you did have a dog, you'd be expecting it to come to your every beck and call like you're expecting me to."

"I've got sardines."

Leonard's pointy ears perked up. "What kind?" he asked unaffectedly, finally getting up and doing a full-body stretch.

"The good stuff. Da Morgada."

The black cat leaped down from the tree to a few steps in front of her.

"Excellent. Now put the can down and back away, nice and easy."

Smirking, Susan did so. The cat looked at the can, then up at her in disbelief.

"Well? Aren't you going to open it, you bumbling biped?"

"Information first, sardines second."

The Chicago Cat Council was a non-dues-paying organization of felines that had been around for a couple of centuries. It was really more of a social club, where cats exchanged information on other cats, their owners, their owners' pets, how to deal with tail-pulling children without getting thrown out of the house, who was in heat, who was spayed, yowling techniques, dogs to avoid, and what television was worth watching. The CCC was, quite frankly, the best source of gossip in the town. Which is why Susan cultivated her contacts in it quite carefully.

Leonard Nimoy was one of them. He had been named by his last human owner, an old man who had died when Leonard was six months old. Leonard had been living on the street since then. Susan had offered to take him in once, but he'd been rather insulted by the idea. Still, he visited her sometimes, especially during the winter, all the while making it clear that he was gracing her with the dignity of his hallowed presence.

She took a few notes while he summarized the gossip of the past week. Most of it was fairly routine, though there did seem to be an increased need for attention on the Wicker Park cult, who had apparently moved from sacrificing toads to sacrificing budgerigars to the great god Darkwing. She probably didn't have to deal with it, since she knew for a fact that the ill-tempered and self-loathing Darkwing hated birds and would probably smite all his followers. She wondered which operative had suggested the budgies to the idiots...

Finally, his little speech was complete and he was happily shedding on her black jeans while she opened the can of sardines.

"I hear Jenny down in Hyde Park is watching your new apprentice," said Leonard Nimoy as Susan loaded the yummy goop into a small bowl that she had somehow secreted on her person. "Does she still wear that ridiculous pink collar of hers?"

* * *

Severus was explaining his side of the events to the girls.

"After Bella fell out the window, Cygnus Black came to it and was about to Hex her. Then I saw Lily get him with that blaster of hers. Bella followed it up with a poorly cast Avada, after which he left the window. Then the Majakes arrived and arrested us. He got away."

"It was NOT a poorly cast Avada, you idiot!" protested Bella. "It was a tongue removal Hex!"

Lily winced, and instinctively rolled her tongue against her bottom molars to verify its continued presence.

Bellatrix looked at her. "You distracted Cygnus with a spell when he was about to Hex me?"

"Er. Yes," answered Lily.

"In that case, I owe to thee a debt, Lily Niamh Evans. I shalt return to England to retrieve thy sister."

Bella peeped out of the corner of her eye to confirm that her little brother wasn't smirking at her. She didn't actually care about Lily Evans. Oh no. It wasn't like she was a _friend_ or anything. This was about honour, nothing else. Right? Right.

* * *

A/N:_ I am dispensing with the numbering of footnotes, owing to my difficulties in counting beyond three. It's not like I have a PhD, you know._

_And now you know how Susan knew that Severus was in gaol. You didn't think that the grey moggy was hanging around Sev's apartment for the hell of it, did you?_

_Kvass is a soft drink made from malted brown bread or rye flour that has been made for over a thousand years. It is sometimes called 'bread drink'. It's popular in Slavic countries, with a alcohol content low enough (well under one percent) to be considered acceptable for kiddies. It would be the equivalent of butterbeer in Durmstrang._

_Black Cats and Death have a close relationship, which is why Susan (and her grandfather Death himself) can speak to Leonard Nimoy. You might want to bingoogle an article by Jennifer Copley called 'Cats and the Black Plague'. She posits that in the 13th century, Christians in Europe were so terrified of cats - owing them to being card-carrying Satanists and pets of witches - that they destroyed them (and their owners) in great numbers. Which left noone to eat the rats, which multiplied, causing the spread of the Black Plague. To quote her: "Pope Gregory IX told people that domestic cats were diabolical in 1232, fueling anti-cat sentiment, and this prejudice worsened over the years... Overall, from 1230 to 1700, starting with the Inquisition, millions of cats were murdered."_

_This Leonard Nimoy is not related to the biped photographer of the same name._

_In the next delightful episode, our intrepid crew return to Ye Olde Country to rescue Petunia._

_And now I must go and read the latest chapters put out by my favourite SSLE authors Escoger (who introduced me to the genre, and whose 'What If? The Purgatory of Lily' must be read by anyone of a civilized disposition, just like their other fics) and Darkglare. See my profile for links to them._


	9. The Hunt For Dread Petunia

__

A/N: Thanks for the reviews! I've been told not to mention who's reviewing because then the people who didn't review will get all upset and not review and that would be a tragedy. Since I'm a Pureblood, this seems very logical.

What other fics on ffnet am I reading now? Let's see... Escoger's brilliant trio of SSLE fics **Law of Unintended Consequences**, **Ex Intempestivo Pax**, and **What If? The Purgatory of Lily**. Then there's the Darkglare's supremely dysfunctional SSLE **Snape's Worst Memory**, gingercat0319's hilarious Dramione fic **Sweet Caroline**, Skysaber's new fic **Hermione of St Trinian's** (recommended to anyone who wants to see twin Hermiones running through Malfoy Manor on a secret mission while still in diapers), severusphoenix's SSLE fic **Lily Fixes A Mistake**, ApollinaV's exquisite and damn funny HGSS fic **Gilded Cage**, evenstar101's Dramione **Twisted Roots**, luckei1's Dramione **Heavy Lies the Crown**... and Phoenix Writing's HGSS fic **The Problem With Purity**, which is unusual because it's one of those one-in-ten-thousand fics where Harry actually behaves like a friend to Hermione. And there are a 'few' others. Oh, and I'm obviously waiting anxiously for the next episode of Codex Serpens **Mel Granger, Dark Witch** since I'm anxious to see how Hermione's mostly-orphaned daughter turns out after being stored in a basement by her abusive aunt Ginny ... (and for another technical reason that shall remained undescribed).

* * *

Bella sat in the back of the evil scary metal monster. She had a nasty feeling that this trip could be really bad for her complexion. Her heady social life would die a quick death if her face remained green.

She didn't look to her right, because she knew Lily would be enthusiastically sticking her pretty little head through the window gazing at the (crowded dirty overpopulated filthy demeaning disgusting pathetic) Muggle city with her tongue lolling out of her happy little mouth.

She didn't look to her left, because then she would see the planet (and her health) rush past her at unnatural speeds. Of course, brooms went faster than this obnoxious contraption, but that was in the _air_. It was unnatural for anything to move this fast on the _ground_. Muggles and their damn devices. Next thing you know, they'd be breeding babies in labs.

Severus and his scary mentor sat in the front seats of the automowotsit. Bella, sitting directly behind her brother, considered his new short brown hair and his neatly trimmed beard. He looked quite different, and therefore deserving of new insults. Not that she'd ever called him a greasy git to his face, but it would be inapplicable now. More importantly, it would distract her from the world speeding past her. Hairface, Child-with-beard, Turdhead, Rickboy, The Amazing Hedgehog Man, ...

Where were they going, anyway? _She_ wanted to go to the International Portkey Station. The brochure said it was in Evanston. She thought that meant North. She took out her right palm and tapped it with her wrist-holstered wand. A virtual magnetic needle appeared over it and - and they were heading west.

Clearly, they were obviously being kidnapped by the Susan - what was she? Creature - no, too tame. Monster. Yes. If having a skeletal face didnt make you a monster, then nothing did. The Susan monster probably did really evil things in her spare time, like eat spinach and boil kittens in huge vats of puppy blood. And she had Severus in her evil monster clutches.

Hm. What would Jane Bondarenko do in this situation?

Behave normal. Put the others at ease.

"Excuse me, Madame Sto Helit, but could you please tell us where we're headed?"

Lily and Severus turned to look at Bella in disbelief. Even the Susan monster gave her an appraising look through one of the innumerable mirrors in the four wheeled monster container.

"What? Did I say something?" she huffed. Her amazing plan was going to the Muggles!

"Bella," whispered Lily, leaning over. "Are you feeling alright? You said 'please'."

Before Bella could protest at the sheer injustice of it all, the monster spoke from the front of the car, in sweet dulcet tones that were obviously designed to fool the gullible into a state of antiparanoia.

"We're going to England, Miss Black," replied Susan. "Ah, here we are." She slowed the car down and reached outside the window to toss a pocket-sized card and a few coins at a basket hanging outside a crummy looking tollbooth. In the window they could see an average sort of man playing chess with a big shaggy dog. Then she sped the car up again, and they headed for the tunnel in front of them.

Bella looked at the others. Severus looked oddly expectant, the way he did before he brewed a new potion. Lily wore her usual look of childlike curiosity (a trait that did not typically lead to long lifespans in Bella's world). Bella considered trying the car door again, but it was still locked, and the anti-Apparation wards in the car were still up.

And then everything went black.

Un, deux, trois, quat-

And then everything went unblack again and now Lily and Susan were on the right hand side of the car and the car was on the left side of the road and the trees were different and regular and it looked familiar even though she'd never been here before and it was all very confusing.

"Sev," said Lily next to her, "I've a feeling we're not in Illinois any more."

* * *

Narcissa Black was fifteen years old, and had just finished her fourth year at Hogwarts. She was terrified. Her mother was bouncing unpredictability between periods of smothering affection, verbal brutality, fear at what Cygnus would do next and general O Woe Is Me.

She'd never been close to Bellatrix, even though the older girl had loved to play with her dollies more than she did. It was just that Bella's definition of 'play' was somewhat different from hers. Of course, she'd long since learnt to keep her real dollies hidden, and leave plenty of decoys for Bella to play with. And that had made it almost a game, really, and an effective - albeit slightly perverted - way to bond with her older sister.

Why had Bella run away? Didn't she know what Cygnus would do to the youngest Black sister?

She heard the door slam downstairs and the sound of her father swearing.

This was bad.

Her father called her name.

Oh dear oh dear oh dear...

* * *

"What in the name of Little Merlin was that tunnel?" yelled a frazzled Bella. "We're in England now, aren't we?"

"Looks like Wales to me," remarked Lily, who'd just seen an unpronounceable sign on the road with lots of Ys in it.

Bella had the decency to look embarassed. Her great grand-aunt Gwenhwyfar would have paddled her renegade butt for such Anglan parochialism.

"We're in Wales," confirmed Susan, "close to the border with England. We'll be in Cas-gwent in a few minutes. You lot will have to get out there, I'm afraid. I've got some business to take care of. You'll be able to Apparate in a few minutes."

"Why can't we Apparate now?" asked Lily, anxious about Petunia. "You could stop the car and let us out, couldn't you?"

Bella muttered something incoherent about moving Apparation-proof four-wheeled prisons. Everyone knew it was possible to Apparate from a moving object, as long as you didn't need all your bits. Must be a male thing, she mused.

"You're still recovering from the Portunnel," answered Susan. "Your bodies won't be ready to Apparate safely for another fifteen minutes, which is long enough to reach Cas-gwent."

Portunnel? Bella hadn't heard of a Portunnel before. Must be some Muggle thing. Then again, Lily was asking Susan about it, so that was a wee bit odd.

"It's a Portal-Tunnel," replied the Susan monster. "Just as a Portkey is a Portal-Key. Did you see me throw in a card with the money at the tollbooth before we got in? That specified our destination, which was the Tintern Tunnel in Wales. The Regulars think they've been abandoned for a decade."

"How does the Ministry not know about this?" asked a flabbergasted Lily. Bella and Sev were equally curious, but with the Gryffindor doing the questioning, they saw no need to betray their interest.

"It was invented by the Chileans."

Susan didn't need to explain further. The Chilean wizards and witches were in/famous for being heavily integrated with Muggles. They punched well above their weight in global magical innovations. The English-dominated Pureblood-dominated British Ministry would probably take another fifty years to grudgingly accept a Portunnel. Meanwhile, the Welsh had probably been delighted to have been able to test Portunnels when still in prototype stage, for use in their myriad smuggling operations.

Bella had a feeling that she wouldn't be able to tell anyone else about the Portunnel even if she wanted to. Celtic magic had the best secrecy spells in existence.

* * *

Half an hour later, the young trio was in Chez Evans, with Lily rushing from room to room to garden frantically shouting her sister's name.

Bella and Sev hadn't had the chance to talk to each other since the Majakes had got them. He rectified this, casting Muffliato first.

"I find myself curious as to how you took Lily along for your little trip and left her sister alive," mused Severus. "After all the rigmarole we went through to ensure your safety from the spell, why bring Lily along if you were unwilling to kill her relatives?"

Bella bit her lower lip, before looking up. She seemed nervous, which was an odd thing to view on her face. "I brought her along for you, Sev." _And if I killed her sister, she would never speak to you again._

Severus was saved from responding by the entrance of a sad looking Lily.

"Petunia's gone," she said plaintively.

Bella resisted the temptation to say, "I told you so." Surprisingly, her resistance was successful.

Then the redhead visibly pulled herself together and stuck out her right arm. "Here. Take my blood. Do that Dark location thing. I must find Petunia."

Severus stepped forward and gently pushed her arm down. "That is unnecessary. She is probably in the basement of the Black residence."

Lily looked at Bella, hoping to hear confirmation of this.

Bella sighed in resignation. "She's not in that basement. The stench from the blood from Cygnus' revels was becoming too much for even the Elves to clean up. The folks from Witch Weekly might have noticed. Got to defend that Best Home title and all."

Lily blanched while Bella continued.

"Cygnus would have taken her to one of his many - sheds. So we'll have to track her down using Lily."

Sev glared at Bella, but look resigned as well. He reached into an inner pocket of his outer jacket and retrieved a vial to give to Lily. She nodded as she took it. After a couple of minutes, she reached out to hand it, filled, to Snape.

Bella was horrified, and pushed Lily back before she could finish the handover.

"Are you crazy, Evans? You _never_ give your blood to someone else without getting a magical oath from them not to use it in a manner other than that you intend."

Lily looked at her like she was crazy. "But I trust Sev!"

Taking a deep breath, Severus nodded. "Regardless of your personal feelings, Bella is correct. With this amount of blood, I could enslave you and sell you off to the highest bidder. Or use it to resurrect myself if I died. Or do any number of foul deeds."

"But you wouldn't! You're my friend!"

He gave her a inscrutable look. Before Lily could press further, Bella handed a card into her hand from somewhere about her person.

"That's the standard Blood Giver's Oath. Make us swear it to you. And do it fast, because your sister could be getting tortured right now."

The last sentence killed Lily's protests, and she had her two allies swear the requisite oaths to her. As Bella repocketed her Oath Card, the Mudblood asked about it.

"Do you always carry that card around with you? How do you know that you'll need it? As in that particular card?"

Bella looked in disbelief at Sev, who shrugged. "I was lax in my responsibilityin educating her on Pureblood customs. I did not tell her about Oath Cards. And I have a Potion to prepare, so if you'll excuse me, ladies, I'll be in the kitchen." And with that, he was off.

Bella sighed, and took out a pack of cards. _Potter's Oath Pack_, said the expensive looking silk cover on them. It was a well used pack, and obviously very precious to her.

"Potter!" exclaimed Lily, shocked.

"Potter?" questioned Bella, looking around for the Marauder. James had, after all, a reputation for stalking Lily, and now that she was finally back in the country...

"The cards say Potter on them."

"Oh," replied Bella, looking at them. "Never thought much about that. Some ancestor of your James no doubt."

"He's not my James," countered Lily angrily. "He's not even important enough to despise."

"Whatever," muttered Bella, taking the cards out of the clothpack and reading some fine print on it. "Um. Oh yes. The first person to codify the myriad customary oaths used in the state of Magical England was Bartholemew Potter. He released his first set of exquisite printed Oath Cards in - zut! bloody print has faded - 17 something." She squinted. "1743. My set was printed in 1883. Hey, that's 150 years! Oh, wait. Bugger me, Vector would have my arse. 140. Nothing special about 140. Damn boring number. Anyway, the cards were my gran's. I inherited them when she caught the final snitch."

Lily took the cards, and went through them, utterly fascinated. There were oaths for _everything_ - ensuring that a barber destroyed all hair and skin flecks you left behind, paying for services rendered, the buying and selling of healthy reliable House Elves, discretion in relationships with paid mistresses, safety during flying lessons, ensuring the safe return of borrowed broomsticks, not getting emotionally attached while sleeping with your friend's spouse, being looked after in old age by children for whom keeping you alive was not in their inhereditory interests, keeping quiet about children created out of wedlock...

"So everyone's got one of these?" asked Lily. "Every Pureblood family?"

Bella shrugged. "Every family I know. They're not as used as often as they were, especially among the Light families." She scratched her chin, looking at the _Potter_ name on the card packet. "Ironic."

"Oh," commented Lily, suspecting what that meant in the scheme of things. She looked at another card. "Oh my! There's one here on how to the proper Oaths for enslaving a Muggle."

"I wouldn't worry about that one," commented Bella. "Everyone knows it's dodgy."

"Because enslaving Muggles is wrong?"

"No, you idiot, because Muggles don't have any Magic to swear by. That's why you can't trust them. They've got nothing to lose!"

"What!? They've got their lives!"

"It's bloody useless telling someone to do something or else they die," Bella pointed out reasonably. "If they refuse, they die, and then the task remains undone."

"But - " flustered Lily, "what about throwing an Oath Breaker into prison?"

"A Muggle in Azkaban! Don't be ridiculous. They wouldn't last twenty minutes there. It would be a death sentence. And you still wouldn't get the task complete!"

Lily spluttered again, but then Severus turned up with a three vials of his just-brewed Petunia-locating Potion and it was time for more important things than considering how the cultures of Dark and Light Pureblood families once had more in common than they did now.

"How do we plan to do this?" asked Snape as he handed Bellatrix a vial of Petunius Locatus. "We can all Apparate."

Bella took the potion. "The Mudblood can't. I'm the only one here of age. Your International Apprentice ID - you do have it, don't you? - Good - gives you of-age rights."

Lily gaped ... again. "Sev! You're an apprentice?"

"Yes," he said curtly.

Bella looked between the two of them in surprise. "You didn't tell her, Fido?"

"That's great!" exclaimed Lily, giving Sev an excited hug. "Congratulations!" _And why didn't you tell me?_

Bella watched her little brother look supremely discomfited. She would almost call it blackmail material. Still... she knew he had deeper issues than that, which mean that he would be making a cutting remark designed to push the Mudblood away right about...

"Let's go fetch your bitch," hissed Severus to Lily before downing his vial. "Bella, drink up. We've got a worthless Muggle to retrieve."

And then he Apparated out, the Potion in him determining that his location would be that of Petunia Evans. Bellatrix quickly conjured some gloves, put them on, gulped her Potion, grabbed a stunned and hurt and rapidly-becoming-tearful Lily in an embrace from behind, and Side-Apparated them out to wherever Severus had boldly gone before.

Of course, in Bella's world, 'boldly' meant 'stupidly with no plan like a bloody _Gryffindor_'. She would really have to get Severus and Lily to work out their issues before someone important - like herself - got hurt.

* * *

__

A/N: I'll need to update the rating for this fic soon, since the death that happens in the next chapter will not be the worst thing that happens there. Still, this chapter's status as the most boring chapter in the fic won't be permanent, so feel free to despair.

On a completely unrelated note, here's a toast to a Scotland-Switzerland cat-gut-and-balls final in two weeks time!

**References:**

"Muggles and their damn devices. Next thing you know, they'd be breeding babies in labs..." Louise Joy Brown was the world's first test tube baby, born on 25 July 1978 to a Bristol couple in an Oldham hospital. She grew up, got married, got sprogged up (the regular way), and now has a three year old miniature human biped.

This chapter contained references to at least three works of popular fiction (that includes books and telly and comics and what my big sister told me about how she was once attacked by killer tomatoes and never got royalties when they made a cruel film about it that completely mocked her traumatic experience).

Cas-gwent, which the English heathens call Chepstow, is a small town (pop: 14000ish) in South-East Wales, next to English border. Tintern (population dependant on tourists) is a village five miles North of it. They are both on the Wye Valley Railway, which opened in 1876 and closed in 1964 owing to lack of traffic. The Tintern Tunnel is somewhere there.

* * *


	10. Le Black Est Mort

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A/N: The previous chapter had references to the Phantom Tollbooth (man and doggy playing chess in tollbooth), the Wizard of Oz ("Toto, I've a feeling we're not in Kansas any more"), Star Trek ("boldly gone before"), the 1978 spoof Attack of the Killer Tomatoes (trailers on Youtube - scary stuff), and the 1984 book / 1990 film "The Hunt for Red October".

I've had a lot of trouble writing this short chapter, owing to the events near the end of it. I have miserably failed to do justice to the horror of the events described. I apologize in advance.

* * *

The two girls arrived outside an abandoned farm house. Bella thought it was rather cliched, but there was a good reason why cliches became cliches - they generally worked.

Severus was already there, casting spells.

Lily's face was now completely tear-streaked.

Bella grabbed the Mudblood by her shoulders - that was why she had gloves on, after all - and gave her a few good hard shakes.

"Evans!"

"Waaaah!"

"Oh sweet and salty wife of Lotty", mumbled Bella to herself. She hadn't said 'Waaaah!' since she was six ... when she'd learnt to sob in silence. It helped keep her father from remembering she was there.

She shook the Mudblood again.

"Look, now that you've finally realized that Fido hasn't forgiven you for abandoning him last year -"

The Mudblood looked at her in disbelief, then wide-eyed comprehension, and then started snivelling again.

"- oh shut your gob!" hissed Bella. "Sniffle later. Rescue now!"

She was about to follow up her rant with a slap when Lily's sniffles ceased. The Mudblood wiped her nose on her sleeve in an uncommon manner most befitting the peasant she was. This was a bit difficult since she was wearing a short-sleeved Muggle t-shirt. Bella grimaced and handed her one of her hankies, with a muttered "Keep it". Couldn't have Mudblood germs and all that. That would greatly reduce its resale value.

Bella stomped over to where Severus was carefully casting spells. They were still fifty metres from the farm house. That was a pretty wide anti-Apparation net for something as minor as a Muggle.

Severus had a look of angry concentration on his face, as one might find on a young Mozart upon finding that his piano had mice. And then discovering that the rodents were dancing to a tune by Salieri.

Lily had come up behind her, and had joined Severus in spell casting. The redhead's spells were different, more classical, more Charms, more wrist movement.

Severus was also classical, but in a masculine, straight-up-fighting sort of way, fewer movements, more mental control. And Severus had a lot of mental control. It might even be considered sexy, Bella thought, if moody nasally-unchallenged Halfbloods were your cup of tea. She preferred Turkish coffee.

She wondered if she should push Sev and Lily to work together. Their styles seemed quite complementary.

"Blood!" exclaimed Lily suddenly, lowering her wand. "We need blood!"

Severus paused in his spell casting for a moment, before casting a couple more. He frowned, and then looked rather miffed. Bella presumed that it was because Lily was correct ... and that Severus was unamused to find that she'd found something he'd missed.

"What kind of blood?" she asked the Mudblood.

"Life blood," growled Lily, looking around.

Bella followed her gaze to a small brown hare watching them. It was a rather cute hare, as members of the genus Lepus went, and would doubtless make an excellent pet or stew.

Bella had always liked hares, ever since Andy had read to her six year old self the stories of Alice Liddell and her wonderful adventures in Derwonistan. There were purely fictional, of course, since everyone knew that April Hares didn't really exist, and that it was terrible etiquette for a monarch to yell 'Off with his head!' all the time since beheading left such a terrible mess without a bucket available and the Queen of Spades naturally carried a spade and not a bucket.

So it was rather a shock when Lily cast a perfectly aimed Hex that ever so neatly severed the hare's head from its body.

She wasn't the only one surprised. If Severus' jaw was any lower, he'd be grazing. She recovered her own jaw before he did and remarked, "You know, you might want to apologize to her at some point. For purely health reasons, of course."

Meanwhile, Lily had rushed over to the downed critter and was busy collecting its life blood in a rough bowl that she had transfigured from her hairband.

Bella wondered if Lily would retch about this later. Clearly, she was very much in the Save Sister At All Costs zone now. Whatever the case, Bella would have her camera ready.

Speaking of sisters... Bella wondered how Narcissa was doing. Which was really annoying since she'd been trying not to think about that all week.

"Do you know what to do with the blood?" asked Severus, apparently recovered. Lily was approaching them, carefully balancing the bloody bowl.

"What kind of Apparition Ward is it?" asked Bella. "And how in Morgana's name did the Mudblood work it out before you did?"

"Aranrhod's," answered Severus in a marvellous example of selective hearing.

Bella decided to rub it in later. "Put the bowl down right there," she yelled to Lily. "Do you know how to break it?"

Lily shook her head. "Just know detection." She paused. "But you know, right?"

Bella nodded. She'd used an Aranrhod's Ward before. Learnt it from her mad mother, oddly enough. She'd used it to keep her sisters out of her room the week before Yule. Both Andromeda and Narcissa were utter nifflers when it came to opening their presents before the opening date.

It was a cruel, cruel world, where Mudbloods where capable of cold-blooded lepucide.

Bella knelt before the bowl, rolled her sleeves up, coated her hands in the still-warm blood, and began to chant in Welsh.

It took a couple of minutes before the Ward flickered and died out. Lily was running towards the farmhouse immediately. Severus followed her, catching up to her quickly enough.

Bella scourgified her arms and wand and followed at a more dignified pace. She was a great fan of dignity. Dignity was a lot like an opposable thumb. You didn't realize how precious it was till it was taken away from you. Like hers had been.

She frowned, and shoved away the memory.

After all, the man responsible - Barty Crouch Junior - was only half a man now, so there was some justice in the world, even if she'd had to dish it out herself a few years after the event. And it wasn't like he was going to ever admit that he was walking around uni-balled.

Ah. Screaming. There was screaming coming from the building now. She picked up her pace towards the building, from Elegant Stroll to Possible Jog.

She was at the door of the ratchety old stone building when she heard the shrill voices of Petunia calling Lily a whore and a freak and a harlot and a monster and a street walker. Bella thought calling someone both a whore and a harlot was rather redundant - it would be like calling someone stupid and a Gryffindor - and wondered what was so insulting about walking on a street. Weren't streets meant to be walked on? Weird people, these Muggles.

Bella shrugged. At least she knew not to enter the building now. And the stupid Muggle was alive and adequately unhurt, which was more than she'd expected.

And then she felt _something_ and she dived to her right, hitting the ground on her left shoulder - ouch! - and rolling. She looked up, saw her father, and another barrage of red spells coming straight at her. The world turned black before she could think about how he'd never looked that angry before.

* * *

Severus was bored. He'd been watching the Evans Sisters reunion for _ages_. He was mildly impressed by Lily's ability to cast diagnostic and healing charms while being verbally assaulted by a primate who would make a howler monkey look second-rate. __

"Lily, did you see what your freaky friends did to me?"

Petunia had been treated surprisingly civilly. She seemed to have been just stunned, not punched and kicked. And cut, of course, but the blood had been drained via her arm rather than, say, her throat or stomach or worse. __

"Look at this! See this cut? How am I supposed to find a husband with this cut?"

Severus had some idea of the cruelty Cygnus Black was capable of. He suspected that the bastard had never met Petunia, but had sent a peon to do the job instead. __

"He did that freaky wand thing on me! It's all your fault, you whore! Why did you have to be so unnatural?"

Unnatural? Petunia listened to Barry Manilow, for Merlin's sake. __

"What took you so long to get here anyway?!!"

Feeling sorry for Lily, Severus decided to stun her sister. She'd probably Hex him for it, but listening to Petunia was about as pleasurable as having an itch on that one spot of his back he couldn't reach. He was surprised when Lily didn't protest.

"I'll take her back home," said Lily after a minute of silence.

"Is that wise?" asked Severus carefully.

"Why do you care?"

He shrugged. "Get her somewhere untraceable. Your Aunt Impedimenta, perhaps?"

Lily considered this. "I'll take care of Petunia," she said. "You can do something less ... hare raising."

Severus smirked. "That was terrible, Lily. Besides," he said, walking over to Petunia's body and slinging her limp arm over his shoulder, "you can't Apparate legally. I'll be back for you."

"You don't know where Auntie Impi lives!" protested Lily, before a memory turned up and kicked her in the rear. "Oh. You do remember."

They were nine at the time. Severus had turned up, nose bleeding, at Chez Evans and found the family about to get in the car. They were going to visit Lily's big-city aunt in Manchester. One look at him and Mrs Evans had decided that he was coming along. Petunia had been appropriately horrified, but the two younger children had had a good time.

"I remember _everything_," replied Severus, his voice even. "I'll be back in thirty minutes." He Apparated out with a crack.

Lily stared at the blank spot he left behind. She knew Severus better than he thought she did, and the pieces of the puzzle were coming together now that Bella had explained things - speaking of which, where was Bella?

She walked to the door, opened it, and headed outside. Hunh. That was odd - the scene was decidedly Bella-free.

Then she heard a scream.

It was a primal scream. She hadn't ever heard a primal scream before, but whatever a primal actually was, it would probably scream like this.

Like any other perfectly unreasonable person, she ran in the direction of the scream.

The terrible scene she found would remain with her for the rest of her life. Bella was on the ground, her clothes ripped, the look on her face that of a woman shattered.

But it was her rapist - her _father_ - who was the one screaming. His robes and trousers were open, and he was clutching his blackened crotch.

Lily watched in spellbound horror as the blackness spread. She could track its movement by the frenzied motions of Cygnus Black's hands.

In less than a minute, his entire body was blackened and charred.

And he wasn't screaming any more.

As Lily sprinted towards Bella, the Aurors arrived.

* * *

__

Next time: Bella goes to Azkaban for killing her father and using Dark Magic. 'It will also be a return to light-heartedness. Does Pumblechook ring a bell?

References:

Oh sweet and salty wife of Lotty... a reference to the cautionary tale of Lot's wife Melotia, known as Lotty to her friends. In Pureblood legend, she swore a poorly worded and overly generic oath as a teenager not to ever look back at her past. At the time, she was swearing to herself about not having any regrets about her life. The oath would have been harmless as it was a literal oath - in other words, it was only breakable literally. Years later, she was fleeing some burning city when she turned back to look... the oath took effect, and she was turned into a pillar of sweet and salty frizinsal.

There is a possibility of error in the translation of original wordings of the legend, and that she was actually turned into a puddle of sweetmeats. The Muggle version posits a pillar of salt, but this interpretation has been duly dismissed by Pureblood scholars.


	11. Vive La Black !

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A/N: My profile has changed. This is a momentous event, even more momentous than the moment you learnt that Pete Sampras' tennis racquet strings were made of cow intestines.

In this universe, there are no human guards at Azkaban. All gratitudinal nods go to Pumblechook, the funniest Dementor fic ever written. 

* * *

**The Morning After...** __

"Two hundred and seventy five whoresome wankers on the wall, two hundred and seventy five crummy gits."

"Take one down and feed him to termites, two hundred and seventy four crummy gits."

"Two hundred and seventy four committed freaks on the wall, two hundred and seventy four crummy gits."

"Take one down and Crucio his gonads, two hundred and seventy three crummy gits."

"Two hundred and seventy three Muggle lovers on the wall, two hundred and seventy three crummy gits."

"Take one down and use him for potions incredients, two hundred and seventy two crummy gi-i-i-i-i-ts." 

"Welcome to Azkaban, Miss Susan," said the Chief Prison Warden politely, extending a putrid hand in the direction of his office. "You haven't visited us for a while."

"Forty three years, Daniel," replied Susan Sto Helit as she continued to listen to Bella's bowdlerized rendition of the popular prisoner classic. "I had no idea that your newest prisoner was that loud." She paused. "Or that ... memorable." She quickly cast a selective silencing charm.

Daniel - who was a good and life-of-the-party sort of Dementor - made a choking sound that Susan interpreted as a chuckle. "After observing the effect of her singing on her neighbouring cellmates for two hours, we have been piping her crooning into every cell in the prison. The effects have been most satisfactory. I have never seen a prisoner make such a difference in less than 24 hours."

"Much wailing and gnashing of teeth?" ventured Susan.

"There has been an increase in prisoners requesting long nails that they can use to plunge in their ears to cause deafness." Daniel leaned back on his comfortably mouldy rocking chair. "I think all the guards are drunk on unhappiness right now. I do hope you're not here to take her away. We've turned off the Effect when with her, like your message requested."

"Thank you. Is she eating alright?" asked Susan as she checked her nose plugs. Much as she gave a shit about Dementors, she couldn't deny that they smelt like acrid piss and general decay.

"She demolished an entire shepherd's pie last night. We got it fresh from the mainland for her. The Muggles assured us it was made from genuine fresh shepherd."

Susan rolled her eyes. "Nice to see your sense of humour is unchanged, Daniel. Thanks for treating her well."

"Honestly though," continued the undaunted Dementor, waving aside her gratitude like an old friend, "you wouldn't believe what they put in shepherd's pie these days. It's almost as bad as sausages. And don't let me get started on haggis - they've been using cow intestines up in Dundee! Can you imagine? Cow! What next? Hags?" He stopped in his rant, suddenly musing at the idea of Hags in Haggis. "You know, it might work in certain markets - "

"None of them sanctioned by the IOI," pointed out Susan, referring to the laws of the International Organization of Immortals that even she was subjected to.

Daniel looked unperturbed by this minor detail. "Pshaw! Bloody bureaucrats."

Susan smiled, reminding the Dementor that she - like him - was occasionally called upon for enforcement duties by the IOI. Only the gods ever disobeyed the IOI, and even they tried to keep it discreet when they did.

"Right," he muttered, "Topic change. Did you know my mother was a baker?"

"Oh?" asked Susan, surprised that the Dementor remembered anything of his original existence as a human. Most didn't, or chose not to mention it.

"Oh yes. Back in Sumeria, before I was cursed." Daniel sighed, long skeletal fingers rubbing his sepulchral chin.

Susan cocked her head. "What did she bake?"

"Books. Laws."

Susan looked appropriately bewildered.

"She worked for the scribes of Hammurabi. She could write too, of course, though they wouldn't allow a woman in court. She wrote his pronouncements down on clay tablets, then baked them in a furnace."

Susan noted the story for future reference. It was, after all, an unusual story, and well worth quoting at the next cocktail party that the society vampires threw.

"She also baked books," continued Daniel. "My favourite was the one about - oh, do I remember this - ah yes! - Big Blue Croaking Cloaks. It was a best seller, you know. All the respectable Sumerian mummies read it to their kids. Not everyone could afford the servants it took to lug around copies of the book, you see."

Susan did see ... that there were no limits to her ignorance. That was the trouble with knowledge. The more you knew, the more you realized you didn't. Even the gods didn't know everything. She doubted Zeus knew the meaning of 'fidelity' and 'humility', for instance.

BEEEP!

Susan flinched. "What's that?"

"It's my five minute timer," answered the Dementor. "I started it when you sat down. The book said that five minutes was the appropriate time for small talk."

Susan considered telling him that the book probably had a footnote that explained that you weren't supposed to tell your conversational partner that you were using a book to guide your conversation. She decided against it.

"Was my talk small enough?"

"Small?"

"Trivial. Unimportant. Confusing. Meandering. That's what the book said small talk was."

"Oh. Yes. I suppose it was. You did very well with the small talk."

Daniel looked ridiculously pleased with himself.

"So what can a lowly wraith do for you, Ms Susan? I presume it has something to do with the Black kid."

"It does."

"Well? Go on!"

Susan looked uneasy for the first time. "Er -"

Daniel looked worried. Anything that could make Death's descendant go 'Er' was worrisome.

"Er," she said again, in case he hadn't heard her the first time. "Would you be willing to train her in Dark Magic?"

There was a flurry of incident on the other side of the desk as Daniel rocked off his rocking chair. He hadn't meant to, but the chair had a mind of its own. It was probably made of Ent wood, which was notorious for its periodic protests. Sure enough, Daniel got up with all the elegance that a being made of rotting flesh and bones could muster. He proceeded to kick the chair into submission.

"Sorry about that," muttered the fuming Dementor. "Bloody mudlins at the Ministry send all the bad chairs to prison too."

Susan chose not to comment.

"Now I surely must have misheard you. You want us to train a bloody human?"

"I wish. The _gods_," she explained, enunciating the word with a great deal of spittle, "have decreed that Bella is to be one of those to bring down that Riddle rogue."

Daniel considered this. "Since when did Riddle get classified as a rogue? He's too incompetent to be classified as anything, let alone a rogue. He'll never be more than a small time tyrant."

"That's not what they're concerned about," explained Susan. "He's been making Horcruces."

Daniel's eyes didn't widen, since Dementors lacked eyelids. But they would have. "Oh," he muttered, "that does change things."

"Quite."

"She could sing to him," he suggested. His eyebrows, which he also didn't have, would have wiggled.

Susan sighed. "Riddle needs to be driven to death, not raised from it. Look. She's got an affinity to Dark Magic. She just needs proper training. Who knows that art better than you lot?"

Daniel stood up angrily in protest... before slumping back into his now-obedient chair. He pulled up his left sleeve, exposing his putrescent arm. Susan looked away for a fraction of a second, but it was enough.

"Do you hate this girl?" he asked, his raspy voice soft in resignation. "I was human once. We all were. And we played with Dark Magic, secure in our invulnerability as every youngster it. We played, we lost. We can't even die now! Is this what you want to happen to this Black kid? Thousands of years of regret and boredom, feeding off the detritus of humanity?"

Susan considered this for several minutes. Minutes that the Dementor spent adjusting the tuning on his radio to switch it from BBC Scotland to Radio Lapland.

"I thought," she said eventually, "that the fact that you had made mistakes with Dark Magic was a plus point. You know the errors on her path, and can stop her from making them."

Daniel shook his head. "She won't listen." He stood up and glided over to a cupboard to pour himself a drink. "Want some?" he asked, indicating a fresh pitcher of yellow liquid. It might have been beer, but its stench...

"Goddess!" exclaimed Susan, casting an air freshening spell. "What is that? Cat's piss?"

Daniel laughed as he poured himself a glass. "Fresh cat's piss? Here? In Azkaban? I wish. Any cats here would get eaten. By the rats. This is rat's piss. Want some?"

Susan gestured otherwise. The gesture might have been considered rude in some circles.

Daniel snickered. "For an immortal, you have terribly human taste, Susan."

"My parents were human too," she pointed out defensively before dragging the conversation back on track. "Is there nothing you can teach her then? You've been around a few millenia -"

"Don't remind me," muttered the Dementor as he slowly sipped rodent piss.

"- surely you can teach her some of the tricks you've learnt on the road."

"Roads weren't invented when I was born."

"My point exactly, Daniel."

The Dementor returned to slouch on his Ent wood rocking chair. "You said he was making Horcruces?"

"Yes."

"Hmm. Yum."

* * *

For Lily Evans, these had been the 24 Hours from Hell, or at least from Purgatory.

It was rapidly becoming clear that she was higher on Petunia's Hate List than immigrants, carpet munchers, and people who hummed Eleanor Rigby in church. Her sister never wanted to see her again, and there was a distinct possibility that she actually meant it this time. Petunia had already put their house on sale and was investigating ways of getting the hell out of the freak-infested country.

Lily had considered explaining to Petunia that there were 'freaks' outside Britain as well, but Severus had taken her aside and pointed out that Petunia leaving the country might be beneficial to her health.

Severus. They seemed to be in a state of fragile truce at the moment. They still had not talked about their friendship, or lack thereof. Lily didn't feel good about this. She had always assumed that Severus would be there. Even when she pushed him away, she thought he would always be panting for her in the background. It was incredibly selfish and arrogant of her, she knew. She hadn't liked that realization about herself.

Her father once told her, "An acquaintance is someone you know well enough to borrow money from. A friend is someone you know well enough to lend money to."

The aphorism was designed to attract giggles, but there was some truth to it. The money lending was merely a symbol of trust, and that was what friendship was about.

Did she trust Severus?

Yes. She hadn't always. She'd been wrong.

Did he trust her?

Not any more, apparently.

Well. She was a fighter. She'd get him to trust her, if she had to kill him to do it. She paused. Well, maybe not _kill_ as such. Not _kill_ kill. More _bop-the-noggin-extensively_ kill. More _Coyote-Catches-Road-Runner_ kill. Cartoon kill. Not long-eared-head-flying-through-air kill.

She blanched.

She ran outside to retch.

She wasn't quick enough.

_"Scourgify."_

The sound didn't come from her. It was a bit difficult to pronounce charms during the throes of upchuck.

"Are you alright, Lily?"

She wasn't surprised that at Severus' presence, but at the tone of his question. He sounded ... concerned. He sounded normal.

"Sorry," she muttered while she wiped her mouth off with Bella's hanky. She was surprised to remember that she still had it. "Just remembered the hare."

She pushed her hands off the floor, turning over to a sitting position with her back to the wall. She was relieved that he didn't comment on the ruthless manner in which she had resorted to killing. True, it was only a hare... but it was a living, breathing, creature. Surely some hesitation on her part would have been warranted.

"When did you get here?" she asked, looking up at Severus. She'd never observed him from this angle before. _Grandma, what big nostrils you have._

"You left the front door open," said Severus quietly. He seemed stunned and unsure of what to do with himself, which was not normal behaviour.

"Sev?" asked Lily, worried. "How's Bella? Have they scheduled her trial yet?"

He walked to the couch and tipped over its back, twisting his body so that he ended lying on it. His shoes were still on, hanging over the side of the sofa. Lily observed that his socks were black, like everything else he wore below the waist. (Their shirts at school were white.)

"I went to the Ministry this morning," said Sev from behind the furniture. "The trial's done. She's in Azkaban now."

"AZKABAN!" shrieked Lily, pulling herself off the floor and rushing over to the sofa. "For what?"

"Killing the Head of an Enema Family."

"Enema?"

"Noble and Most Ancient."

Lily worked it out. NMA. En-Em-Ah. Enema was more insulting than Enemy. Everyone knew about the founding families of Magical Britain - Black, Potter, Smith, Marchbanks, Dumbledore, and a few others. It was one reason why nobody interfered when Black and Potter assaulted Severus repeatedly.

"Nice one," she said approvingly.

Severus' lip twitched, indicating that he might have, in some other universe, smiled. He continued the explanation. "Killing the Head of an Enema Family is practically an Unforgivable."

"But he - her father _raped_ her! It was self defence!"

Severus shrugged. "Yes."

Lily opened her mouth to protest, but seemed to realize in time that Severus was not the enemy. It was the look on his face. Resignation. The same look he wore whenever the Marauders attacked him and teachers looked the other way while the other students watched to see how badly he'd be Hexed this time.

She walked around the couch and sat down on the couch.

"Ow," he commented.

"Your fault for not getting your legs out of the way," she replied, though she did get up, remove his legs, sit down again, and place his legs on her lap.

He mumbled something. It was probably 'Rhubarbumblegrumble' but she decided it was 'Thanks'.

"So how long did the trial last?" she asked softly. "Two minutes? They stuffed Veritaserum down her throat, asked her if she'd killed the scuggan, then slapped her with a One Way Pork to Azkaban?"

Severus' eyes were still examining the ceiling. "Wouldn't be surprised."

Lily said something about Ministry officials that they would have paid a fortune to have the physiological flexibility to be able to accomplish.

"Except about the Portkey," he muttered.

"Huh?"

"I don't think you can Portkey into Azkaban. They would have Portkeyed her with some guards to the Orkneys and then they'd row her to Azkaban. Then the Dementors would have taken over."

Lily had forgotten about the Dementors. She turned pale.

"We've got to get her out of there!"

Severus snorted. "Sometimes I wonder how you ever got into Gryffindor. Then you say something like that and I remember."

"Hey!" protested Lily, well aware that in Severus Speak, 'Gryffindor' was synonymous with 'Jump First, Check For Parachute Later'. Or, more succintly, 'imbecilic dunderhead'.

The two teenagers sat on the couch in silence for the next ten minutes, not even acknowledging Petunia when she stormed down the stairs and out of the house in a huff. She might have mentioned something about them not getting any shag juice on the sofa. She might have said a lot of things. Neither of them chose to respond or, in Lily's case, even hear.

"How did she kill him anyway?" asked Lily suddenly.

Severus examined the ceiling intently. It was amazing how a ceiling could develop new areas of fascinating detail if you stared at it long enough. He wondered idly if that was how Michaelangelo painted the Sistine Chapel... staring at it long and hard, seeing the images pop out of the ceiling, and then filling them in with his brushes so that others could see them too.

"I'm not entirely sure," replied Severus. "What you told me about what happened makes little sense."

"Wotcher mean? She Hexed him!"

"You saw the Aurors find her broken wand."

"I know that! She did it wandlessly! Accidental magic!"

"Emergency magic," corrected Snape, referring to what post-puberty bursts of magic were called.

"Same thing," argued Lily.

"Possibly," he conceded. "But that would have resulted in an effect like Expelliarmus. Cygnus would have been pushed aside forcefully. Hopefully with enough force to impale him on a conveniently jutting tree branch, but nobody is ever that lucky. No. Cygnus was burnt to death. That's not Emergency magic."

Lily didn't argue this time.

BRRRRRINNGGGGG!

Both teens jumped at the sudden noise. Severus' left leg nearly clipped Lily's nose.

Lily looked at Severus and giggled at his attempts to look unruffled. She pushed his feet off her lap and headed towards the side table with the telephone.

"Hello? Evans residence."

Severus Snape found himself with a fine view of Lily's jeans-clad arse as she answered the phone. He wondered what it would look like unclad. Even if she was a friend of convenience who would abandon him when the fuss had died down, she still had a nice arse.

What made an arse nice, he wondered? If you gave a hundred people a hundred photos of arses, would they come to some sort of agreement on which ones were wankworthy? If they all wore jeans, would they be able to tell which ones were male and which ones were female? If you placed an orang-utan in jeans and took a picture of its arse, would people still want to bang it if they didn't know it was human? Worse, would that tidbit of knowledge even make a difference?

Severus was rather distracted by this unsettling thought, so much so that it took a biro hitting him on the conk to return him to the real world.

"Oy! You!"

He wondered who Lily was talking to. Oh. Him. He was the only one here. She was doing well not to call him by name.

"Oy! Pinocchio!"

On second thought... they really had to get his identity sorted out. Would it be so bad for Severus Snape to return to life? Faking your death wasn't a crime. He hadn't even got any life insurance money out of it. Even if that little detail was more due to lack of planning than lack of intent.

He lifted his head and gave Lily a solid glare. She remained incorrigbly immune to it.

Her hand covering the mouthpiece, she asked, "Do you know someone called Andrea Tonks?"

His eyes widened, and he raced towards the phone.

* * *

_A/N: More Bella next time._


	12. Dasvidanya Comrade Liver

__

A/N: References in the previous chapter were made to Little Red Riding Hood and Feegle vocabulary. Twice. Each.

* * *

Andrea Tonks, formerly known as Andromeda Black, was a piece of work.

Lily and Severus both thought the piece in question might be the Venus de Milo. What they differed on was whether this was pre or post arm loss.

There was no question that Andromeda Tonks was beautiful. Lily hadn't ever seen her, since the older witch was years older than her two younger sisters, but tales of her beauty - and of Ted Tonks being even more beautiful - were widespread in Hogwarts. Their eloping had been The Scandal of 1970 - a 1970 that had lasted far longer than twelve months.

Lily was jealous.

Here she was, all tongue tied in the presence of an older witch that looked much better than she could ever hope to be, and Severus was talking to her like he talked to anyone else.

Correction, he was talking to her like he talked to Lily herself, not the way he talked to most people. Most people he didn't talk to. (Why talk when sneering was available as a form of communication?)

It wasn't fair. Severus was a boy. Boys had hormones and things. Proper boy behaviour when they saw a pretty woman was to swoon and knot their tongue.

Lily wondered if she should check if someone had magicked a penis onto her.

Severus would have scoffed at her thoughts. He would have pointed out that a penis didn't contain any hormones and then gone into physiological details of what a gender changing Hex would have to accomplish...

"I'll be back," said Andromeda suddenly as she left their pub table. Lily could hear her stilettos clipclopping into the distance.

So. Severus and her were alone again. He was giving her an inscrutable look. This was rather annoying, since she thought she had categorized all his looks, from Angry-At-The-World to Angry-At-The-Universe to Oh-Merlin-Oh-Merlin-This-Potion-Is-Going-To-Explode. Then she had the brilliant idea to form a new category called Inscrutable and labelled his current Look with it. All was well.

"You were rather quiet," he commented.

Lily considered this. Perhaps some honesty was in order. "She's very pretty."

He raised his eyebrows. "Unlike you, I have practice being around beautiful women."

This didn't make Lily feel any better. He was referring to Bellatrix, of course.

"She'll be back," he explained. "She has to make a phone call to her man."

"Her man? She called him that?"

"I presume Ted is of the male persuasion and belongs to her, like she belongs to him."

"Yes, but -" Lily's voice trailed off. She didn't even feel up to a good banter.

Severus gave her a curious look before appearing to have an internal conversation with himself.

"I find it useful," he said after a while, "when I meet new people, to determine their weak points."

Lily perked up, interested. Andromeda had a flaw? What kind of flaw? Hmmmm. Maybe it was ingrown toenails. That must be why she wore shoes instead of sandals in the summer. Mighty fine shoes, certainly, but the finery was merely a disguise intended to cover the shoes' true purpose of hiding ingrown toenails.

Lily felt better already. Sev always had a way with words.

"I looked into her eyes when we met her. She is -" he halted, floundering for words. "- sad."

"Sad?" asked Lily in disbelief. Though she did suppose ingrown toenails would make you sad. Her own left breast was smaller than her right breast and that made her sad. When she remembered to think about it.

"She had to leave behind everything she knew, the world she grew up in, and go into hiding."

Lily thought about this. She almost said something, but then remembered that that statement could have been applied to Severus as well. And while he didn't seem sad - perhaps he was?

Severus was sad?

She didn't think he would care about ingrown toenails if he had them.

She would have to investigate his sadness and if she could do anything about it. Maybe then he'd forgive her.

"You two look cozy," said a returning Andromeda as she sat down.

Even Lily raised her eyebrows at that. Andromeda chuckled, being the only one who could also see that Severus had raised a solitary brow simultaneously.

"Ted's caught in traffic."

Lily decided that this was code for Andromeda's husband being in the middle of a drug deal. It meant that she wouldn't be flustered when Mr Walking-Sex-On-A-Stick showed up. Drug traffickers weren't sexy. It would be like drooling over a Kray twin.

With her new found confidence, she finally felt capable of asking something other than "How are you?"

"Do you have any idea how Bella killed Cygnus?" she asked.

Andromeda looked momentarily non-plussed at the bluntness of the question, but shook it off.

"Can you tell me what happened?" asked the older witch.

Lily glanced at Severus. He responded with a look she readily categorized as You're-The-Bloody-Witness-You-Tell-It.

She began to explain.

* * *

Bella's stay at Azkaban was not in line with her expectations. She was supposed to be going mad right now recalling her worst memories. (And yes, she had a choice collection of them.) Instead she was going mad trying to work out what the Dementors were up to. Perhaps it was a new form of psychological torture?

Soon after lunchtime (more shepherd's pie), one of the wraiths had turned up at her cell and told her she was moving to a new room. It seemed unsure of how to behave. But it still smelled apalling, and Bella had thrown up. This seemed much more in line with expected happenings and both human and Dementor were able to relax as a result.

As Bella followed Stinky to the new room, she noticed that there was a lot of singing in the cells. She hadn't quite realized there were so many women in Azkaban, or that prisoners could sing that badly. There was also a lot of wailing and groaning, so she couldn't make out the lyrics.

She was jarred out of her musings by their entering an altogether different part of the prison. It smelt... musty and unused, like an old castle that hadn't seen a human for three centuries and wasn't quite sure what to do with one.

Stinky came to a stop at a mighty oaken door and pulled a rope hanging next to it. Bella thought nothing of the fact that the rope was hanging in midair, unattached to anything.

The door opened with a small creak.

Stinky looked flustered. "Bugger - oiled it way too much," it - he? - she? - muttered.

Bella entered the room and gasped. It was ... the stuff of nightmares. She hoped this wasn't meant for her.

The bed looked incredibly comfortable - she had no quarrel with that.

The room was a riot of pink and red and yellow and lace. The walls were pink and dotted with bright red hearts. Cute badgers cavorted around, engaging in lewd and unconsciable behaviour, like cuddling, nosing, kissing sans tongue, and waltzing. On the yellow-gold ceiling were adorable little ponies.

"Do you hate it?" asked Stinky anxiously.

A stunned Bellatrix nodded wordlessly.

"Oh good. We took it from your worst memories. Had to keep up standards somehow."

Bellatrix nodded again. She could see how they had come up with the torture room. It looked like Narcissa's when she was five, but with an extra dose of Hufflepuff. One girl's _Awww_ was another girl's _Arrggghhhh!_

Then she noticed that some of the ponies on the ceiling were actually playful little lion cubs and she had to resist the urge to scream.

One thing was clear - if she ever got out of this place, she wasn't telling anyone about it. 'They gave me a comfortable bed' would be adequate. No need to mention the extras.

"You'll be sleeping here from now on," explained Stinky unnecessarily.

As they left the room, the little ponies on the ceiling whinnied goodbye. Bella was fortunate not to see the lions and badgers wave excitedly at her retreating back.

* * *

Andromeda looked ashen when Lily finished her eye witness account.

"Excuse me," she mumbled as she got up and headed to the bar. Lily moved to follow, but Severus grabbed her shoulder.

"She's going to get a drink."

Lily reluctantly obeyed. But she did turn around to get a view of the front of the pub. Sure enough, Andromeda was motioning to the barman to get her what looked like a bottle of his finest. She put it to her lips and began chugging it, causing conversation in the pub to slowly cease. A beautiful women drinking like a gallows-headed pirate would do that to any pub.

"What's she drinking?" whispered Lily.

"Not sure," answered Severus, "but I would not be selling her liver insurance in a hurry."

There was scattered applause in the pub as Andromeda returned to their seats. She was holding the half-full bottle of _Dasvidanya Comrade Liver_ with her. She offered it to the kids, who politely refused. Severus refused it because he didn't want to follow his father's footsteps. Lily refused it because Severus did.

Andromeda's voice wasn't slurred. Only Severus spotted the slight slowing down of her words as she put in more effort to keep them steady and controlled.

"I think Bellatrix cast a Dark Witchcraft protective charm on herself," stated Mrs Tonks.

Lily glanced at Severus, and then turned to look at him when she saw that his eyes were wide. And since it couldn't have been the Dark aspect of it which had surprised him ...

"Witchcraft?" queried Lily.

"Yes," asserted Andromeda before chugging down another mouthful of _Die Liver Die_. She turned to yell at the barman for another plate of chips.

"Proper witchcraft?" asked Severus, leaning forward. "Spells I would not be able to cast?"

Lily blinked. There was witch-only magic?

"Yes," replied Andromeda with a wry smile, "spells you would not be able to cast. Unless you have ovaries hidden somewhere."

Now Lily _had_ to ask. "There's stuff only women can do?"

"Course there is," Severus pointed out, "it's called pregnancy." He paused. "And not having to worry about getting kneed in the g-"

Andromeda broke in before he could finish. "Ever wondered what why Hogwarts is called a school of Witchcraft and Wizardry? Witchcraft exists, but most European Ministries all but banned it in the 1200s to 1500s. It consists of spells - Light, Dark, Grey - that only women can do. Some can only be performed by virgins, others only by mothers, and yet others only by witches beyond child bearing age."

"A coven!" breathed Lily, amazed.

"Quite," agreed Andromeda, "A maid, mother, and crone - the most powerful triad of witches."

Severus was still listening avidly, though his body language showed few signs of it.

"What of Wizardry then? Is it spells that only men can do?"

"I honestly do not know," replied Andromeda. "But if there were spells only wizards could do, I'm sure they would constantly remind us of it. So I would presume that Wizardry is just another name for Magic."

"So the Ministries banned Witchcraft because they're a bunch of chauvinist wankers?" asked Lily.

"Women wank too," Severus pointed out.

"Fine. Chauvinist tossers."

Severus graciously conceded the corrected point.

"I don't believe it!" yelled a fuming Lily. "You're saying the Ministries banned an entire branch of magic just because they were a bunch of old men who couldn't do it? What about the women? Some of the spells could have protected us!"

"Protected us women from -"

"Oh," said Lily quietly. _Men_.

Silence.

"It is peculiar," commented Andromeda, "that the status of witches in the days of Rowena and Helga was higher than it is today."

The chips arrived, and the trio dug in. Andromeda seemed in most need of comfort food.

"You said Bella cast a protective witchcraft charm on herself," said Severus, returning the conversation to its original track. "Do you know which one?"

"I'd have to look it up to know what it was called. But from what you said of my father's injuries." She halted so she could take another sip of _Accio Cirrhosis_. "There is one that can be used by women who've been raped, so that they don't get raped a second time."

Lily was stunned. Bella had been raped?

Severus looked resigned, and then surprised when he realized that the chip held in his forefingers had been turned to mush.

"When the second rapist inserted his penis into her," stated Andromeda dispassionately, "it would be cursed with an Aduro Hex. Internal burning, very painful." She looked grim, though a tad pleased. "_Very_ painful. And then the Aduro would spread to the rest of his body."

More silence.

"Cygnus deserved it," stated Severus.

Lily didn't know what to think. She, after all, was the only one of the three who had actually seen what had happened to Cygnus, and she didn't think anyone deserved to die the way he did. Even someone who raped his own daughter ... then again, she didn't know what to think any more. Crime and Punishment was something she would have to think more about, and she suspected that no amount of thinking would be adequate.

"It's a Dark Protection Spell obviously," continued Andromeda. "So not only did my sister commit the cardinal sin of killing the head of an Old Family, she also did it using Dark Magic. Using Dark Witchcraft. If this ever came to a public trial before the Wizengamot, she wouldn't have a chance."

"Fuck," said Severus.

"Don't fucking swear," chided Andromeda. "Sorry, been living with Ted too long."

* * *

Bella stood in the middle of a large field. It looked like a Quidditch pitch, except there were rectangles at each end instead of three circles.

She hadn't remembered seeing Large Open Spaces For The Benefit And Leisure Of Ye Prisoners in the Azkaban travel brochures. There was a distinct feeling that she had been fast-tracked in the prison motto of 'Abandon Sanity All Ye Who Enter Here'.

Well. If she had already gone mad, there was only one thing she could do. Lie back and enjoy it...

She flumped to the ground and lay down.

She had barely begun the process of enjoying it when a poolful of water completely drenched her.

"HEY!"

"Be quiet, Locust."

The voice was harsh and demanded obedience. The accompanying stench demanded her lunch.

A sole Dementor stood in front of her. He was dressed differently, in robes - no, a cloak - of tanned multi-coloured leather. He was completely hooded, like the other Dementors, but

"My name is Master Pew," he stated.

Bella's nose thought this was appropriate, but her mouth refused to voice this notion, which her brain thought was an excellent idea.

"Here is a wand," stated Master Pew, holding out a foot long piece of ash wood.

Bella grasped it eagerly. "Thank you!" she exclaimed, reflexively polite in the presence of someone who obviously had more magic than her. (Her few interactions with Susan had been most educational in the development of this reflex.)

Master Pew's eyes - or whatever substituted for such - glowed.

"Thank you, Master Pew," she clarified hurriedly.

"Feel free to try and get off the island with this wand. You will not succeed."

Bella didn't believe him, but restrained herself to only casting a Bubblehead charm for the moment. Her nostrils duly sang Kumbaya as a result.

"What is its core?"

"The intestines of a human while it was digesting a rat."

Bella grimaced. "That would not yield a functioning wand core." She paused. "Even if the human was Pureblood." She paused again. "Would it?"

"Your question was poorly phrased."

"What is its core, Master Pew?"

"The heartstring of a Hungarian Horntail. It is good that you learn quickly, Locust. Your training will require it."

"Training?" asked Bella, confused.

"Do you wish to keep your wand? Good. Then you will train, Locust."

* * *


End file.
